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 Chicago and the Constitution, 
 
 REPORT TO THE CIVIC FEDERATION. 
 
 uL.c^ 
 
 B. AlvLEN FROST, 
 ROBERT McMURDY, 
 HARRY S. MECARTNEY. 
 
 Committee. 
 
 0. 0. 
 
 BAHHANO a MklM PRINT. Cmwmo. 
 
O i\ J /-* J 
 
 
 n 
 
 • • • • 
 
OUTLINE OF CIVIC FEDERATION COM- 
 MITTEE REPORT. 
 
 The report deals with the question of amendment or 
 convention. 
 
 It schedules some changes in the constitution suggested 
 heretofore by various b<xlies. and outlines some new ones 
 for the purpose of finding the widest possible scope of 
 present demands for constitutional changes. It then con- 
 cludes that these (all of which it does not commit 
 itself to recommend), and even many more, are not 
 enough to impel the calling of a convention, a step which 
 it condemns as unnatural to a "going" state. The toler- 
 ance toward such bodies, prevalent in most of the Amer- 
 ican states, it attributes to a "habit" acquired in their 
 formative periods. 
 
 It finds the proj^er function of a convention to be -i 
 creative or constructive one. and that unless a state has 
 l>ecome so diseased as to need practical re-creation, there 
 is no other use for it. It takes the i>osition that all needed 
 Qiicago or local reforms can l)e had under one amend- 
 ment, and submits the form of the Qiicago amendment 
 last offered in the assembly simply for the purposes of 
 testing this question, and affirms that if adopted it would 
 l>e valid. It affirms, secondly, that such an amendment 
 could validlv be i)laced as a sq>arate and additional article 
 to the constitutic^n : and, thirdly, that it could l)e addetl 
 thereto as a separate section. 
 
 It names seven lawyers of Chioag(i to whom the re- 
 |X)rt, and the arguments api)cn(le(l. have l^een submitted, 
 and states that their conclusions, whether confirmative or 
 negative u|)on the three proji»)sitions al)ove. will be given 
 out when received. In case the views of these lawyers Ik- 
 scriouslv divergent, it |K)ints out a metluxl of having the 
 matter tested in the Supreme Court early in the commg 
 session of the assembly by obtaining an advisory (^punon 
 ui)on the subject, and in time for another step to l>e taken 
 bv the assemblv in ca^c of nn :u1vor<o opinion. 
 
 tf rf-^^- r^#^ 
 
' 'iTi'thV contingency that the legal conclusion given by 
 the committee be not accepted as sound, or sustaine^d upon 
 a test, it recommends the plan of first repealing the one- 
 article-at-a-time limitation and then passing Chicago 
 enabling amendments, so called. It shows that under this 
 latter plan, with an extra session of the legislature and a 
 special state election arid some other minor incon- 
 veniences, the needed Chicago legislation could become 
 consummate, and be in force in the fall of 1905. It 
 schedules the steps requisite to hold a conven- 
 tion, and points out that under that metho^l it will take 
 until 1903 with a special state election or until 1909 in the 
 regular wa}^ to witness desired legislation in force. 
 
 An appeal is made for thorough study of the subject, 
 and for harmony O'f action. 
 
 The appendix is divided into "Part I" and "Part II." 
 
 In Part I the arguments heretofore made by the State 
 Bar Association, and others, against the validity of an 
 amendment of the kind submitted, are treated seriatim., 
 and the legal conclusions of the committee are set forth 
 at the end. 
 
 In Part II the chief principles upon which the conclu- 
 sio'us in Part I are based, is enlarged upon, viz. : that the 
 limitation upon the power of amendment should be 
 strictly construed. 
 
 It is attempted therein tO' show how near to the heart 
 of state life lies the power tO' change constitutions, and 
 hence that limitations upon the power must be subject to 
 a strict, if not doubly strict, construction. 
 
 The apology for the length of the report (some 54 
 pages) is that much confusion has arisen upon the sub- 
 ject, and that one cannot aid much in dispelling con- 
 fusion upon a subject chiefly technical and many featured, 
 by merely briefing up reasons or scheduling one's own 
 conclusions. 
 
Chicago and the Constitution. 
 
 REPORT TO TH^ CIVIC FEDE;RATI0N. 
 
 Chicago faces again but with heightened interest the 
 subject of constitutional reform. 
 
 A resolution for an amendment to the constitution 
 prepared at the instance of the Civic Federation accom- 
 panied by a report explaining its scope, etc., was intro- 
 duced in the last assembly and reported out of commit- 
 tee; but owing to the complications arismg from the state 
 apportionment contest and other causes did not come to a 
 vote. 
 
 A resolution for a constitutional convention was 
 offered in the House of Representatives and received the 
 earnest support of Speaker Sherman, but was defeated 
 by a vote of 66 ayes to 45 nays, most of those opposed 
 thereto not voting. 
 
 On such a resolution as on one for an amendment, a 
 vote of two-thirds is requisite. 
 
 The measure lacked a decisive number of affirmative 
 votes; yet the tOial vote in favor of it was large. 
 
 Since then the subject has been more or less in the ai»* 
 of public discussion. The press frequently treat of it, 
 the necessity of some chanf^e is becomin<y more aj parent. 
 
the evils of Chicago seem to be pressing harder and sides 
 are being taken, and clubs and other bodies are pledging 
 their support to one or the other proposed method of 
 relief. 
 
 Chicago certainly needs relief through constitutional 
 changes. 
 
 The remainder of the state also needs some. 
 If Chicago intends to move in the matter, her petition- 
 ing bodies and citizens should of course unite so far as 
 possible upon one or the other plan. 
 
 In making her appeal, she should, however, consider as 
 far as possible the needs of the whole state and the full 
 scope of the subject. 
 
 Having gotten right in the method of procedure, she 
 should then recite her ills in chief, the curing of which is 
 blocked by present constitutional limitations, and then 
 move earnestly for amendment or convention as the case 
 may be. 
 
 How then unite upon a plan? 
 
 A great impediment to bringing about unanimity of 
 opinion on any given question is the readiness with which 
 the ordinary citizen takes his impressions for his opinions 
 and then commits himself to one or the other side of the 
 question. 
 
 In these complex times often the plainest truths are 
 hidden from sight by reason of our diversified experiences, 
 and the same old familiar principles are frequently not 
 recognized lying beneath a very brush pile of varied data 
 and involved technique. 
 
 A law apparently simple and meritorious may conflict 
 with many other provisions of the statutes or with some 
 clause of the constitution, wliich is onlv discovered after 
 
the public has been roused up to agitate it and it has been 
 passed by the legislature. 
 
 The confusion is thus added to, and the law is either 
 sustained after an expensive and long delayed court test, 
 or trimmed down so as to effect but a portion of the relief 
 intended, or held entirely void. 
 
 All this is waste. 
 
 The frequency with which laws are declared unconsti- 
 tutional is painful. It is, in fact, disgraceful. 
 
 It may well be said that a law is not in force "from and 
 after its passage" or from and after the date provided 
 for its taking effect, but from and after it has been de- 
 clared constitutional at the end of a burdensome lawsuit. 
 
 The fault is frequently attributable to the constitution 
 itself with its embargo of useless and baneful mechanical 
 provisions and limitations. But in most instances it could 
 be avoided by pains-taking work and forestudy. 
 
 Few bills, or few bills except very simple ones, should 
 be allowed to encumber the dockets of the legislature 
 without being accompanied with certificate of counsel as 
 to their validity. Possibly the legislature should have h 
 legislative counsel corresponding to "parliamentary coun- 
 sel," an adjunct of the British parliament. In most in- 
 stances a bill should also be accompanied with a report or 
 synopsis of the evil to be remedied and the practical bear- 
 ing of the provisions of the bill upon other statutes and its 
 relation to kindred subjects, etc. This might not be 
 necessary if we had a simple constitution and were free 
 from the mechanical limitations and directions which are 
 the chief features of our present one, and if our volume 
 of statutes were one-third as great as it is. 
 
 The constitution makers of 1870 recognized certain 
 then prevalent ills as grave ones and tried lO cure them 
 
by provisions which they inserted in that instrument. In 
 even many trivial matters of method they legislated 
 sometimes to almost the merest detail. 
 
 The Legislature and other public bo'dies and servants 
 had long and often acted dishonestly and extravagantly. 
 
 The convention delegates hence had become accus- 
 tomed to look upon public officers as public enemies. And 
 having tied the hands of such officers in many particulars 
 and laid certain heavy prohibitions upon them, they re- 
 tired from their labors and rubbed their hands with 
 almost demoniacal glee, and all voted the new constitu- 
 tion "good." ^ 
 
 An'd so confident were they of the permanent and stay- 
 ing quality of their work that they attempted to fetter 
 subsequent generations from improving upon it, except by 
 the assumed slow process of amending but one article 
 every twO' years. 
 
 Frankly speaking, the legislation of these men was 
 good legislation, in the main, and did not badly suit the 
 then condition of affairs. Had it not been so the yoke 
 would have galled us earlier and in many more spots 
 than it has. But the trouble is that many conditions 
 then prevalent have changed since, and none of such 
 legislation has. 
 
 The same attitude of distrust displayed in the conven- 
 tion has been habitually assumed by the Legislature to- 
 wards municipalities and other public bodies and agents 
 as to which it has legislated. Laws are loaded down 
 with a lot of directory provisions and limitations, useless 
 in themselves, except temporarily to head off some par- 
 ticular form of vice or to emphasize in words what is a 
 plain duty on the part of public bodies or officials. 
 
Thus the Legislature is fettered heavily by mechanics 
 in the constitution, and the Legislature in turn ties the 
 hands of pubHc agents and officers of its own creation 
 with a volume of limitations upon methods of conduct 
 and procedure. 
 
 Legislation in the constitution and mechanics and 
 method in our laws fetter our energies, load us down 
 with a volume of complexity, multiply lawsuits, and 
 cause paralysis and waste. 
 
 To this add the burdens of partisanship, favoritism, 
 prejudices and class agitations, etc., and we can easily 
 discern a succession of finely ribbed sluice gates through 
 which trickle tiny streams of good to the great reservoir 
 of public need. 
 
 It is highly important, then, that we agree upon a 
 method of procedure to obtain relief. 
 
 To this end, therefore, the whole subject should be 
 well considered and each of the two available plans dis- 
 cussed and a ''balance" drawn. 
 
 While to sometimes disagree is natural, yet we ought 
 first to make an effort to agree. Disagreement after a 
 thorough effort to agree is justified; before such effort is 
 made it is inexcusable and damaging, and sometimes 
 baneful. 
 
 If the subject is approached free from any hobby 
 spirit or prejudice, and exhaustively treated and patiently 
 studied, it may be that ai)parent disagreement will melt 
 away. 
 
 In a report to the Civic Federation accompanying a 
 draft of amendment submitted by one of this committee 
 and another several years ago, the opinion was given 
 that the provision relating to amendments was not a 
 
serious menace to a radical and prompt constitutional 
 reform in reference tO' Chicago and Cook County. 
 That amendments and a number of them widely di- 
 vergent in character could be submitted by the General 
 Assembly for a vote at one and the same time, provided 
 they all be placed under or purport to amend but one ar- 
 ticle; to substantiate this the case of Wilson v. Board of 
 Trustees^ 133 III, 433 (the Sanitary District case), 
 was cited and certain observations suggested tO' sustain 
 the position taken. 
 
 Since this report was made several parties in reports 
 and addresses upon the subject have questioned the 
 soundness of this conclusion or disagreed with it. In an 
 address at a law club banquet Wallace Heckman, Esq., 
 of the Chicago Bar, severely criticises it. Speaker Sher- 
 man thinks its conclusions' are wrong, and a committee 
 of the State Bar Association has lately made a report 
 to the same effect. 
 
 All of the advocates of the "convention" plan admit 
 that it should not be adopted if an amendment can ac- 
 complish the results desired. 
 
 They, however, believe it will not and so in order that 
 delay should not occur by reason of any amendment be- 
 ing held null and void, they advocate a convention. 
 
 If, however, such of our friends can be convinced that 
 the amendment theory is sound and can be shown to be 
 so, then clearly an exhaustive effort should be made to 
 prove it to their satisfaction and that of all reasonable 
 men. 
 
 It was thought, therefore, that economy and harmony 
 would be subserved by a thorough and exhaustive treat- 
 ment of the legal scope of the amendment plan ; and the 
 committee submits as an appendix hereto an argument in 
 
detail to sustain the conclusions given, entitled "The 
 Scope of Amendments to the Illinois Constitution." 
 
 With the conclusions therein to the effect that the form 
 of amendment last submitted by the Federation to the 
 Assembly would be valid if properly proposed by the 
 Assembly and adopted by the people, the other two mem- 
 bers of this committee agree. 
 
 But herein we seek to give the practical considerations 
 which bear upon both the "amendment" and "conven- 
 tion" plans, and to make some attempt at impartial con- 
 clusions. 
 
 We are all seeking to get constitutional reform ; we 
 desire the best, safest and speediest method; to find this 
 the subject should be studied as a scientific or objective 
 question is studied. To "take sides" for the mere sake 
 of holding to a prior impression or opinion or of working 
 up a fight and having something to "champion" is mis- 
 chievous and undignified. If persisted in it becomes 
 childish and futile. 
 
 The first and chief question is : Would an amendment 
 sufficiently comprehensive and broad enough in scope to 
 afford full relief for Chicago be a valid one? This is a 
 purely legal question, and, as said above, it was thought 
 that the arguments and opinions thereon would be better 
 placed in a separate document. The principal conclu- 
 sions deduced from the said argument in extenso are, 
 however, in place here, and we give the following : 
 
 I. The only limitation uix)n amendments which may 
 be proposed by the legislature at one session and voted 
 upon by the people at one time is that they shall purport 
 to amend {or change in form) but one article of the con- 
 stitution. 
 
8 
 
 2. The amendment submitted to the assembly by the 
 Civic Federation in form as annexed to the appendix 
 hereto and purporting to amend Article X, ^'Counties/' 
 if properly proposed by the assembly and adopted by the 
 people would be valid. 
 
 3. Or such an amendment could be added as a "sepa- 
 rate section" of the constitution with no' danger of its 
 being held void; or 
 
 4. It could be inserted in the "Schedule" with equal 
 safety (although it would be oddly placed in such a 
 case) ; or 
 
 5. It could as well be embraced under a separate 
 article. 
 
 We have every confidence that these conclusions are 
 sound. Yet upon a matter as vital as this, we 
 should be both careful and conservative. And therefore 
 we propose that the said arguments and conclusions 
 should have the test of study and careful scrutiny by some 
 of the ablest of our Chicago lawyers in order that the 
 course which may be adopted will be pursued in the con- 
 fidence that it will not be void of ultimate results. To 
 this end we have submitted them to Judge Simeon P. 
 Shope, formerly of the Supreme Court of Illinois, now 
 of the Chicago bar, Judge George W. Wall, for many 
 years justice of the Appellate Court for the Fourth Dis- 
 trict, and a member of the constitutional convention of 
 1870 as well as that of 1863, and who is now practicing 
 law in Chicago, Thomas A. Moran, John J. Herrick, 
 Chas. H. Aldrich, John S. Miller and James DeWitt 
 Andrews (the law writer), Esqrs., all of the Chicago 
 bar. Their answers, when received, v/ill be submitted 
 to the Federation. 
 
 It is said in the appendix hereto (p. 53) : 
 
"The annexed draft of amendment is the one last of- 
 fered in the Assembly in 1891. 
 
 "We concede that it has too much 'mechanics' in it. 
 
 "But these were dictated by the influences and condi- 
 tions with which the Federation was beset, and accepted 
 under protest. We hope that some of these may finally 
 he dropped ; and that a new and simpler draft embody- 
 ing the main features be submitted. 
 
 "But for the purpose of testing the specific question of 
 whether or not varied or complex provisions can be 
 validly placed in amendments submitted at one session 
 the said annexed draft is probably as good as any 
 other." 
 
 We adopt this suggestion and make now no recom- 
 mendation as to the form of amendment ; and hope the 
 one to be adopted will be much simpler than the former 
 one. 
 
 There is recourse also to another plan of obtaining con- 
 vincing and authoritative assent to our conclusions, set 
 forth in the appendix; and this should possibly be pur- 
 sued if the conclusions of the examining counsel should 
 not be uniform and emphatic. 
 
 Some state constitutions provide for opinions to be 
 given by the supreme court of the state to the legislature 
 upon its formal request, as to the constitutionality vel non 
 of certain measures which it is proposed to pass or which 
 may be held under serious consideration by the legisla- 
 ture. Such opinions have frequently been given by such 
 tribunals, usually with the caution that the court means 
 to act only in an advisory capacity, and reserves the privi- 
 lege to decide differently if the proi)osed measure should 
 become a law and upon an actual test the court should be 
 convinced that the advisory opinion were wrong. Fre- 
 
lO 
 
 quently a law in its actual working will display defects 
 not anticipated before its passage. And in a mere ques- 
 tion thus put, the court has not the benefit of counsel on 
 the two sides of the case. 
 
 But in a case like the present one no reason is per- 
 ceived why a court could not as easily pass upon the le- 
 gality of such a provision before the legislature passed it 
 as afterwards. If it were passed and voted upon by the 
 people, it would in all probability be tested before it were 
 actually put into effect. So the court would be as well 
 fixed to deliberately pass upon the question at one time as 
 another. In such case, as in others, an advisory opinion 
 only could be asked for, but it would be all that could be 
 desired, and would fully serve our purpose. 
 
 And as to the assistance of the counsel, the court could 
 appoint counsel to represent each side of the question, and 
 thus have the benefit of full argument. 
 
 Our constitution does not have a provision of the ex- 
 act nature above mentioned. But it does contain the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 ''All judges of courts of record, inferior tO' the 
 Supreme Court, shall, on or before the first day of 
 June, of each year, report in writing tO' the judges 
 of the Supreme Court such defects and omissions 
 in the laws as their experience may suggest ; and the 
 judges of the Supreme Court shall, on or before the 
 first day of January of each year, report in writing 
 to the governor such defects and omissions in the 
 constitution and laws as they may find to exist, to- 
 gether with appropriate forms of bills to cure such 
 defects and omissions in the laws." 
 
 This mandate has hardly ever, if at all, been observed; 
 the court has usually been overburdened in handling the 
 specific cases submitted to it in the usual way ; and there 
 may be other reasons why they have not seen fit tO' act in 
 such advisory capacity. 
 
II 
 
 In a case as important as the present one, however, it 
 is not perceived why the court would not in this instance 
 advise the governor as to the scope of the said amend- 
 atory provision or the validity of the proposed amend- 
 ment ; he in turn to transmit the opinion to the legis- 
 lature. 
 
 This could be done on the court's own motion upon be- 
 ing prompted thereto by Chicago's petitions therefor in 
 the most informal way. Or a motion could be made for 
 leave to file in court a petition therefor, and if agreeable 
 to the court, counsel could be appointed to argue the mat- 
 ter and a time set therefor. 
 
 The object of such a procedure would be to save call- 
 ing a constitutional convention, which would occasion a 
 prolonged and thorough agitation of the whole state, and 
 the expense of a special state election, together with the 
 usual general public expense and inconvenience which 
 go with it; and such an object is sufficiently momentous 
 and exceptional to invite the help of any of the state's 
 constituted bodies in subserving it. 
 
 We suggest, therefore, that in case there continues any 
 well-defined divergence of views as to the legality of an 
 amendment of the kind heretofore proposed by this body, 
 steps should be taken to get the opinion of the Supreme 
 Court judges upon the question for the legislature. 
 
 Or. if deemed advisable these same proceedings could 
 be first taken in our local Circuit or Superior Court, to 
 be heard by one of its ablest judges, or by three or five 
 of such judges and their conclusion submitted by way of 
 formal suggestion to the upper court judges. 
 
 In case the Sui)reme Court should sustain the opinion 
 and conclusions furnished the Federation, the most cau- 
 tious and timid would be quieted and appeased. 
 
12 
 
 We must, however, remember that in these times there 
 are a vast number of hastily formed or "street" opinions 
 afloat upon all important questions. Almost every vital 
 legal issue is more or less confused by them. But we 
 would scarcely ever get substantial or definite reform if 
 we hesitated in any given course of action because of 
 them. 
 
 The public's business is still habitually treated by 
 the average individual as secondary. Matters of 
 purely legal or technical nature, and of most 
 vital import, are treated with amazing deftness 
 and speed at banquets, social conferences and mass meet- 
 ings. Lawyers, and those who are not lawyers, and 
 patriots of all classes, will venture and publish an opin- 
 ion upon the legal phases of Chicago's consolidation plan, 
 and the scope of constitutional amendments, etc., who will 
 not take the time to read the constitution or one-tenth of 
 it or to read a specially prepared opinion and report upon 
 the subject. Some time last spring a leading morn- 
 ing paper published the legal opinions of a dozen members 
 of the Chicago Real Estate Board upon the question 
 whether or not the necessary relief could be embraced in 
 one amendment to the Constitution ! 
 
 When the Federation proposed the ''township evils" bill 
 at the last session of the assembly, a printed report made 
 by the drafters of the bill, explaining its scope an'd re- 
 ferring tO' decisions to prove its validity was handed each 
 member of the said body. The report was but nine pages 
 long, but had cost several weeks of closely applied labor. 
 There were, however, nine attempts by various members 
 to amend the bill or substitute others in its stead. At 
 least five of these were unconstitutional for reasons spe- 
 cifically pointed out in said report. They were all after 
 much confusion and persistent work gotten rid of. But 
 
13 
 
 the hardest task of all was to persuade the parties furnish- 
 ing made-over-night drafts of amendments or substi- 
 tutes to read the report, or look at tlic decisions affecting 
 Ihem. 
 
 Legions of banqueters met several years ago to dis- 
 cuss Chicago's legislative needs and "resolve" in respect 
 thereto; yet when the amendment was pending before the 
 assembly, and the township and consolidation bills, as 
 well, half a "baker's dozen" of citizens could not be per- 
 suaded to go to Springfield to urge the passage of such 
 bills. 
 
 Good work even in days of simple constitutions, and 
 fewer laws, was never done easily; and in these complex 
 times the same truth is more apparent than ever. And 
 the time is at hand when our patriots should all discover 
 that there is some comfort in working in quiet for one's 
 community, and out of the glare of the footlights and 
 public prints; that time and skill are vital to perfecting 
 its systems of law and economy ; that the charm in such 
 service lies more in its accuracy than in its earnestness. 
 
 If in handling such grave and important matters we 
 can get rid of banquet opinions and mass meeting skill, 
 not the least of our burdens will be rolled awav. 
 
 There is a well defined tendency upon the part of many 
 to look upon a constitutional convention as a natural and 
 logically periodical event. The seriousness of the thing 
 '<i not easily comprehended. V(Uir average lawyer, or 
 well-read business man. takes up the constitution and 
 reads it through or scans it over. Seeing here and there 
 unnecessary and hampering provisions, and adding the 
 result of his cursory examination to his experience with 
 public affairs and his impressions formed from speeches 
 
14 
 
 and newspaper agitation, he schedules such parts of said 
 instrument as he thinks needs changes. In most instances 
 he probably does not even hastily read the constitution 
 through, a thing, which on account of the inordinate 
 length of said instrument, could well be excused under 
 other circumstances. Whatever the methods or source of 
 his impressions, however, he views the project of chang- 
 ing the constitution as quite a simple matter ; and at once 
 a conceit springs up within him that he can, as with 
 chalk and scissors, mark off its tuberous or unseemly pro- 
 jections, and clip down to a perfect pattern. 
 But such citizen must be w^arned. 
 
 In the first place he might not be content to lop off awk- 
 ward features and let the perfect pattern remain. Even 
 the State Bar Association committee, who supposedly ex- 
 pended considerable time upon this subject, is not con- 
 tent with specifying many faults of the constitution and 
 doing it well, but it follows many of them with suggested 
 planks for insertion in the constitution. These would be 
 just as much out of place in that document as the ones 
 criticized. They would be just as decidedly 'legislation" 
 or ''mechanics." After recommending that all judges 
 should be required by the constitution to be "learned in 
 the law," and several other useless or barren provisions, 
 it mentions several of what it is pleased to call "affirma- 
 tive governmental principles," to^ be inserted therein. 
 One of these is, "that civil service should be extended 
 by constitutional provision to the subordinate positions 
 in all state and county offices and institutions, and should 
 be made compulsory instead of optional, as applied to the 
 cities of the state." 
 
 A declaration in the constitution that merit alone is tO' 
 control in the appointment to public service would not be 
 
IS 
 
 nut of place. It is a reproach to American citizenship 
 that such a thing should be necessary. If, however, it 
 will help to open the eyes of the American people to the 
 simple fact so persistently ignored that they cannot serve 
 two masters, viz. : the party and the state, or that prac- 
 ticed favoritism is a draft upon the lifeblood of the state, 
 or to other cardinal truths to which the public are blind, 
 it would be a good thing. 
 
 But a provision compelling the use of civil service 
 boards in all subsidiary departments of all state, cities and 
 institutions would be out of place in the constitution and 
 might become a pernicious thing. 
 
 The civil service principle is correct. But had we in 
 public office a pervading spirit of honesty and rigorous 
 absolution from the curse of partisanship and favoritism, 
 civil service hoards would be a useless and cumbersome 
 annex to our municipal departments. They are a defen- 
 sive institution ; needed now to preserve us against ef- 
 fects of prevalent vices. Any one who works against 
 them earns a well founded suspicion of having personal 
 or other unhealthy motives. But when efficiency in pub- 
 lic service shall be the rule, and we shall have ceased to 
 house the senseless arch-fiend of ''partisanship," such 
 boards may not be needed any more than they are needed 
 in a well organized army. One who should predict that 
 this day is soon at hand would be thought bold and reck- 
 lessly optimistic. But one who would do that which 
 would necessitate a state election to dispense with such 
 bodies if and when they shall have become a useless 
 encumbrance, could not be called a constitution maker. 
 
 Then, again, your citizen of the chalk and scissors skill 
 must recollect that many of his suggested reforms prob- 
 ably have not the merit which he seepis to see in them. 
 He will find that many of them are not new. And should 
 
i6 
 
 he take the trouble to glance over old constitutional de- 
 bates, he may find some of them well discussed and re- 
 jected for valid reasons which never occurred to him. 
 Others, he will find, have been tried in this or other 
 states and abandoned. 
 
 When he comes up against others as competent as he 
 in the arena of convention debate, he will find his appar- 
 ently simple subject to have far wider ramifications than 
 he ever dreamed of; and unless born of the obstinacy of 
 the marplot and obstructionist, he will find himself at sea 
 in striking balances, pro and con his petted measures 
 and his mentally fathered system will look sadly marred. 
 
 Said Mr. James Bryce, in commenting upon the success 
 of the Federal Constitution, it proves the rule "that 
 everything which has power to win the obedience and re- 
 spect of men must have its roots deep in the past." 
 
 Said the master historian, Hume : "To balance a large 
 state or society on general laws is a work of so great diffi- 
 culty that no human genius, however comprehensive, is 
 able by the mere dint of reason or reflection to effect it." 
 
 Then, even if the ideas of our aforesaid citizen should 
 perchance be sound in toto, he must recollect that his 
 chance of getting them accepted by a body of men, con- 
 siderable in numbers, would be remote indeed. And he 
 would not, of course, expect that the work would be dele- 
 gated to him alone. 
 
 The result of such a body is largely that of compro- 
 mises. The men who so readily have urged the calling of 
 a convention, might be interested to glance over the de- 
 bates of the convention of 1870. No one believes that it 
 would now be possible to get a better body of men to- 
 gether for such a purpose. We think the chances to 
 equal it very "slim" indeed. 
 
17 
 
 Yet, that body was swayed and racked and confused 
 many times by internal dissentions. It was subject re- 
 peatedly to spasmodical pressure from without, and was 
 deluged with petitions and delegations from nearly all 
 classes and interests throughout the state. Several times 
 the conventions was on the point of breaking up in de- 
 spair, as quite a few similar bodies have done in other 
 states. 
 
 If one peruses the proceedings of that body, he will not 
 wonder why it is that surviving members thereof so uni- 
 formly deprecate the calling of another convention. 
 
 Said Mr. Webster, in the Massachusetts convention of 
 1820, which simply amended the then existing constitu- 
 tion, opposing the adoption of a provision for calling a 
 future convention : 
 
 **\\'ith the experience we have had with the Con- 
 stitution, there is little probability that, after the 
 amendments which shall now be adopted, there will 
 be any occasion for great changes. No revision of 
 its general principles will be necessary, and the alter- 
 ations which shall be called for by a change of cir- 
 cumstances will be limited and specific." 
 
 The Illinois Constitution needs more than "limited and 
 specific" amendments. But by far the most important 
 part of it is its general principles. And no matter how 
 much "mechanics" it is burdened with, the natural and 
 conservative plan of procedure is to hold to what is vital 
 while lopping off the deadwood, whether we hew with 
 vigorous and frequent, or only light and occasional blows. 
 
 The men l>est fitted to !x* entrusted with this important 
 work, are the men who will approach it most cautiously, 
 and take no more responsibility than the occasion de- 
 mands. 
 
 This kind of work should be deliberate and painstak- 
 ing. Debates, even !)y the best lawyers and thinkers, is 
 
i8 
 
 not enough. It is a valuable method when preceded by 
 painstaking investigation, by the methodical collection of 
 data and items of experience, by suggested drafts in pur- 
 suance thereof, and by printed arguments covering the 
 natural scope of the subject. 
 
 The natural and economic method for amending the 
 constitution of Illinois is the "commission" plan, which 
 usually adopts these methods. Such bodies have been 
 employed in a number of instances within the last thirty 
 years by various states. The personnel of such commis- 
 sions has usually been high, indeed, and their work of an 
 equally high and excellent order. In several instances 
 their work extended to reconstructing the constitutions, 
 and was not accepted without material changes. But this 
 was the fault not of the work itself, but principally of the 
 narrow and partisan spirit which pervaded the assemblies 
 receiving the reports. 
 
 Jameson recommends the plan of a commission as 
 peculiarly adapted tO' ''amendment" projects, the commis- 
 sion to frame its amendments and to submit them to the 
 assembly, and the assembly to propose them to the people 
 to be voted on separately. 
 
 Were the subject of constitutional relief for Chicago, 
 or rather the drafting of measures therefor, a compara- 
 tively new one, we should probably have tO' sub- 
 mit to the commission plan here ; and in fact possibly ask 
 for its adoption. But said subject is not new. Chicago 
 has suffered from the present constitution from the very 
 time it was adopted. The justice and constable evil was 
 prevalent then (though not so extensively) as it is now. 
 Il has suffered from the township evil from the very 
 "start," so much so that as early as 1874 a well defined 
 agitation for their abolishment sprung up, and several 
 
19 
 
 prominent lawyers framed up legal opinions in respect 
 thereto. 
 
 So far as Cook County was concerned, its chief feature 
 was an attempt to regulate by inexorable code at once the 
 metropolis and the swamp; and at no time has the gar- 
 ment fitted even imperfectly the municipal corpus of the 
 local public. Suggestions and counter-suggestions, 
 communications, resolutions, editorials, reports of city 
 and county officials and departments, committees of 
 clubs and bar associations and pamphlets galore have for 
 nearly thirty years last past been turned out and eagerly 
 canvassed by a public burdened and therefore interested. 
 
 With a view of placing all this thought and labor to 
 account, the Civic Federation, some four or five years ago 
 appointed its Consolidation Committee of one hundred 
 from the various organizations and interested bodies, to 
 consider and frame a constitutional amendment. This 
 committee, of which Judge Tuley was chairman, and its 
 sub-committees had frequent meetings and did much hard 
 work. The result of their labor was an amendment which 
 professedly was not fully satisfactory to them, but was 
 at the time deemed to be the best that the various interests 
 would be likely to agree upon, and to go as far in the way 
 of relief as one amendment could go. The amendment 
 was submitted to the legislature of 1899, but 
 the resolution for its submission failed to pass. 
 It was upon further consideration of said com- 
 mittee abandoned, and a new sub-committee ap- 
 pointed to draft a new amendment and report 
 thereon. Such new draft, accompanied by a report, en- 
 titled "Constitutional Changes in Cook County," was 
 drawn and submitted and after further scrutiny by said 
 committee and some changes therein was adopted and 
 submitted to the legislature. Up<:)n objection at the hear- 
 
20 
 
 ing in committee, made by certain parties from the ''out- 
 side towns" the amendment was further changed in sev- 
 eral respects, and a ''substitute" amendment prepared in 
 committee embodying such chances. It was then "re- 
 ported out," but for causes mentioned elsewhere did not 
 come to a vote. 
 
 If this amendment as originally offered in the As- 
 sembly, or the "substitute" therefor, or a new one to be 
 drafted improving thereupon be adopted by this body and 
 others acting in conjunction with it, and a report accom- 
 pany it, explaining the scope of such proposed amend- 
 ments, and proving its various features and its merit, 
 and these be approved by the public and voluntary 
 agencies in Chicago who have seriously studied the ques- 
 tion and been interested in it, and the work shall have 
 been done thoroughly — a commission for such purpose 
 will be unnecessary and superfluous. 
 
 In such case the work of a commission will have been 
 performed in advance, and by the same means and 
 methods usual to such a body. 
 
 So far as constitutional amendments applicable to the 
 whole state are concerned, if there be any considerable 
 demand for changes, as there seems to be, it seems to us 
 that a small, able and hard-working commission should 
 be appointed by the legislature to report upon such 
 changes as it shall deem advisable. 
 
 Or. if the State Bar Association, or some other com- 
 petent organization or agency will seriously undertake 
 the work, and appoint a committee therefor, and give the 
 result of its effort in the way of suggestion to the legis- 
 lature, a great impetus would be given the movement for 
 such needed relief. 
 
 But Chicago's ills are peculiar to herself, and there is 
 
21 
 
 no reason for requiring her to wait until matters are ad- 
 justed which affect her only as one of the constituent 
 communities of the state. Her relief must, in the nature 
 ()f things, come soon. It is conceded throughout the 
 state that hers is the sorest spot upon the body of the 
 state; and if so, it is but right that she have the first 
 attention. 
 
 In cl'->sing this j)art of the subject, we have to say 
 lastly, that if perchance the legal opinion furnished here- 
 with (affirming that the amendment plan is feasible, that 
 "amendments proposed at one session" can validly be 
 made wide enough in scope, etc.), be not accepted as 
 sound or sustained upon a test, we favor the plan of first 
 repealing that portion of the amendment article of the 
 constitution which relates to the one-article-at-a-time 
 limitation, before passing any other amendments. 
 
 It would be far better to get full ''constitutional" relief 
 in lour or five years, than either to accept the slim, dis- 
 jointed provisions which we could possibly have passed 
 biennially, or to call a convention and throw our whole 
 constitution into hotch-potch. Yes, far better. 
 
 We do not know how this will strike the average 
 friend, impatient as he justly is to see the needed changes 
 consummated. 
 
 But a long wait rather than take such a serious and 
 unnatural step is. in our judgment, a far lesser evil. 
 
 Chicago could lend her energies towards assuring the 
 submission of the repealing clause by the next assembly, 
 and. if the same were propi^^sed by that Ixxly. towards 
 getting out the vote of the people thereon, in order that a 
 favorable vote should be assured, and hence that no time 
 would be lost in removing the chief ban of progress along 
 this line. 
 
22 
 
 Immediately after the adoption by the people of this 
 repealing amendment (which might provide for a special 
 election of the people to pass on further amendments), a 
 special session of the assembly could be called for the 
 purpose of proposing such Chicago amendments as were 
 deemed necessary. These could be submitted by the 
 assembly to the people at a special election to be called 
 immediately afterwards. At this same session of the 
 assembly all needed legislation could be passed to go into 
 effect in the contingency (probably well assured) that the 
 proposed constitutional amendments be adopted. 
 Or, if there were legal impediments in the way of this 
 (and none such occur to us), they could be made, as they 
 probably would be, to depend upon a vote at the next city 
 or county election, as the case might be. If by chance 
 the amendments had prior to such election failed to pass 
 upon the state vote, the so-called local measures could 
 then be voted down by the people affected by them; or 
 the local officers could decline to call the local election 
 because of a total failure of its object. 
 
 If either of these two latter plans for speeding legis- 
 lation were not adopted, a special session could be called 
 immediately after the adoption of the Chicago consti- 
 tutional amendments for the purpose of supplementing 
 these with the necessary legislation. 
 
 If it be said that these special sessions are costly, and 
 that the state might be reluctant to so use the funds 
 necessary therefor, it can be answered that there ought 
 to be some way to demonstrate to her legislature that 
 giving early and quick relief to one-third of her 
 citizens would be one of the best investments she could 
 make. And Chicago should have enough liberal-minded 
 able citizens to pay a part of this expense, or, rather than 
 let its whole scheme fail, the whole of it. 
 
23 
 
 Under this plan three years ought to mark the limit 
 for witnessing the desired changes as a consummated 
 fact. 
 
 If forced to adopt this method, the work of framing 
 the bills for required legislation should not wait until 
 after the voting upon the constitutional amend- 
 ments required, but should be taken up early 
 and diligently pushed to fruition. The most thor- 
 ough arguments in favor of the frame of bills 
 suggested should accompany them. These, and with all 
 the necessary data, etc., should be sent in advance of the 
 special session to each member of the legislature with 
 special appeals for their perusal, so that when the assem- 
 bly met the groundwork for early, yet thorough, con- 
 sideration and prompt action will have been laid. 
 
 To summarize the steps to be taken under such a 
 plan 
 
 1st. Repeal that part of the amendatory article of the 
 constitution which forbids more than "one article" 
 amendment at the same session, and provide in such re- 
 pealing amendment for permitting a special state election 
 en constitutional amendments. 
 
 This change could be accomplished at the election for 
 members of the assembly in November, 1904. 
 
 2d. The legislature at its session in January, 1905. 
 could submit to the people all enabling amendments 
 deemed advisable, and call for a special election there- 
 upon in the early part of 1905. 
 
 3d. The assembly could at that same session (viz.: 
 January, 1905,) pass all needed Chicago legislation, to 
 go into effect in case the enabling constitutional amend- 
 ments should pass, or to be voted on by the people of 
 the district affected after the date of the said state elec- 
 
24 
 
 tion; or the assembly could, after submitting the consti- 
 tutional amendment, take a recess until after the state 
 election, and then pass the requisite ''consolidation" or 
 "charter" provisions to be submitted to the legal voters 
 in the early fall of 1905. 
 
 If this second plan were promptly and successfully 
 pursued the fall of 1905 would witness as consummated 
 the local legislation desired. Under the first and present 
 plan it will take until that time. But the other will 
 take one more state election, and that a special one, and 
 two contests in the legislature instead of one and much 
 more inconvenience to all concerned. 
 
 This plan of first repealing the present amendment 
 provision, before adopting any Chicago enabling amend- 
 ments, so-called, is thus outlined here only for the pur- 
 pose of rounding out the subject in hand. It is not be- 
 lieved that there is enough doubt about the first and 
 former plan being valid to render a resort to it probable. 
 Such plan, if deliberate and studied opinion upon 
 its validity be conflicting, could be tested in the Supreme 
 Court at its session in the coming February, and if it 
 failed under the judicial scrutiny of that body, the plan 
 herein secondly outlined could still be initiated and 
 adopted during the then session of the assembly. 
 
 In any event, the necessity of a state convention is thus 
 reduced to a ridiculous minimum. 
 
 What changes in the present constitution are necessary 
 and advisable? 
 
 From the report of the State Bar Association, Speaker 
 Sherman's address to the Real Estate Board, the report 
 of Ex-President Healey of the County Board, the 
 memorial of the City Council addressed to the legislature 
 
25 
 
 in 1901 and one or two other suggestions in the public 
 prints, we collect the following as advocated changes : 
 
 1. The abolition of what remains of the township 
 government in Chicago and other cities in the state. (The 
 law^ passed at the last legislature and in force now does 
 not entirely do away with them, but goes as far as the 
 present constitution allows and is aimed to reduce the 
 erstwhile township evils to a minimum. Most or all of 
 what is left of such townships is, however, a useless en- 
 cumbrance. ) 
 
 2. The abolition of justices and constables in the City 
 of Chicago and allowing the substitution therefor of local 
 district courts. 
 
 3. Radical changes in the revenue provisions, such 
 as 
 
 (a) Raising the debt limit of the City of Chi- 
 cago so as to permit local improvements to be made 
 from the general fund, and provide for the con- 
 struction of bridges and other extensive public 
 works, and to remove thereby one of the chief prac- 
 tical obstacles to consolidation. 
 
 (b) Extension of time allowed on municipal 
 bond issues from twenty to fifty years. 
 
 (c) Doing away with the State Board of Equal- 
 ization and allowing state taxes to be raised and 
 apportioned amongst various local municipalities in 
 proportion to the revenue which they raise for local 
 purposes; or allowing other new methods of appor- 
 tioning state taxes. 
 
 4. The consolidation of all local municipalities in Chi- 
 cago retaining the county government only for court pur- 
 poses and the execution of process by the sheriff 
 
 5. Allowing Chicago to frame her own charter. 
 
 putes. 
 
 6. Providing for compulsory arbitration of labor dis- 
 
26 / 
 
 7- Providing for the ownership and operation of pul>- 
 lic utilities by local municipal corporations. 
 
 8. Revision of the article on judiciary, such as 
 
 (a) Abolishment of Appellate Courts and chang- 
 ing the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and allow- 
 ing its division into different departments, such as 
 law, equity and criminal, allowing thus but one ap- 
 peal. 
 
 (b) Providing for appointment of Supreme 
 Court clerk by the judges thereof, instead of election 
 by the people at large. 
 
 (c) Abolishing the provision limiting Cook 
 County to but one of the seven justices of the Su- 
 preme Court. 
 
 (d) Allowing more than one County and Pro^ 
 bate Judge for Cook County. 
 
 9. The repeal of the provision that requires dona- 
 tions of lands, money and property for school, college, 
 seminary or university purposes to be applied tO' the ob- 
 jects designated, in order tO' permit such donations to be 
 applied to public institutions generally and where most 
 needed. 
 
 10. To amend the provisions in regard to right of 
 trial by jury so as to allow less than twelve to return 
 a verdict. 
 
 11. Repeal of the provision in regard to minority 
 representation in the legislature. 
 
 12. Abolishing County Courts in the Country dis- 
 tricts of the state and allowing the consolidation of 
 County and Circuit Courts. 
 
 A few of these provisions are embodied in others, or 
 would be made permissible by the adoption of others. 
 Some, as for instance that one as to arbitration of labor 
 disputes, are not necessary; as arbitration, compulsory 
 or otherwise, so far as practicable, is within the police 
 
27 
 
 power of the state. Municipal ownership, also, is per- 
 missable without constitutional changes. Several of 
 these propositions, while legally possible, may, however, 
 be impracticable on account of sundry mechanical limita- 
 tions in the constitution. 
 
 There are also a great number of suggestions (which 
 we omit) for new affirmative provisions in the constitu- 
 tion that are frequently agitated, but which the propo- 
 nents do not stop to consider are charged with the vice 
 of "mechanics" or ''legislation," the very thing from 
 which we are now suffering. To adopt them would sim- 
 ply be to repeat the chief blunder of the constitution 
 makers of 1870. 
 
 Certainly at first sight the list above looks formidable. 
 
 But it is by no means complete. We will not attempt 
 to schedule all provisions in the present constitution, in 
 addition to those above, which are obnoxious to one's 
 logical and economic sense. Many of these while not 
 properly a part of a constitution, entail no special public 
 inconvenience at this time. But we can add quite a few 
 to the above, which are thought to ''chafe" the body pol- 
 itic, and all of which prompt serious criticism. Changes 
 suggested by one of the members of the committee are 
 the following: 
 
 13. The provision requiring local court clerks to be 
 elected — a useless expense to the people. 
 
 14. Extending the temi of members of the House of 
 Representatives to four years or more. (Two year elec- 
 tions are entirely too frequent and a waste of the public's 
 time.) 
 
 1 3. Ret^lucing the body of the state legislature of over 
 200 members to half that number, or less. 
 
28 
 
 1 6. Allowing state senators or representatives after 
 the first term of service to be elected from other districts 
 than those in which they reside. 
 
 17. Less stringent limitations upon formation of new 
 counties, or changes in the boundaries of some existing 
 counties. 
 
 18. Abolishing the provision that the fees of town- 
 ship officers shall be uniform in the class of counties to 
 which they belong. 
 
 ( Had it not been for this clause the new township law 
 in Chicago could have been so drawn as to dispense with 
 township collectors' fees, and thus saved Chicago $40,- 
 000 or $50,000 per annum.) 
 
 19. Repealing the provision against the sale of the 
 Illinois and Michigan Canal, unless submitted to a vote 
 of the whole people of the state and approved by a ma- 
 jority. 
 
 (The cost of the election and the value of the peoples' 
 time in discussing and voting upon the proposition would 
 in all probability exceed the selling price oif the canal.) 
 
 20. Changing the provision prohibiting the placing 
 in jeopardy twice for the same offense, where the neces- 
 sity of a second or further jeopardy is caused by the act 
 of the accused himself. (Such amendment to be prop^ 
 erly safeguarded against possible oppression.) 
 
 21. The abolishment of imprisonment for debt in 
 actions founded on torts. 
 
 22. Repealing the limitations upon the passage of 
 laws as to titles and ''one subject," and covering the mat- 
 ter by a standing rule of the legislature or a permanent 
 policy in respect thereto. 
 
 23. Removing the ban upon local or special legisla- 
 tion as to county seats and various other subjects. 
 
29 
 
 We repeat now with added einphasis that the list looks 
 formidable. There are no doubt others of more 
 or less importance. Besides these, there are a number of 
 provisions which, though harmless, are a reproach to the 
 state's intelligence; such as the one which prohibits 
 school trustees, directors, etc., from being interested in 
 any school contracts. This simply means that these offi- 
 cers must not commit dishonesty. Logically, such a 
 cause, if it specify one, should specify all public officers, 
 which would make it long enough to form a constitution 
 by itself. 
 
 But while this list of suggestions is large, it does not, 
 with the exception of five or six, or. for instance, those 
 to jury trials, to members of the assembly, to placing in 
 jeopardy, etc., specify very fundamentally vital changes. 
 And over the adoption of most of these there would be 
 much wrangling and disageement in any body of men 
 called to pass on them. The reader hereof has no doubt 
 already condemned some of those in the second list. But 
 there is just one of the big points, viz. : that those 
 items which seem clearly meritorious to some will be con- 
 demned vigorously by others, and hence the demand for 
 change is never so great as it seems to one or a few. Our 
 small committee of three do not agree upon all of them. 
 .\s said elsewhere, by far the most imi)ortant part of the 
 constitution is the bill of rights and the general frame of 
 government; and if this sum total of all these items l)e 
 compared to the whole lK)dy of the constitution, it will 
 indeed seem to l)e but a small portion thereof. 
 
 The principal argument of the advocates of a conven- 
 tion is that bccau.se so many changes are needed, and \yc- 
 cause the amendatory process is slow, therefore the only 
 relief is in a convention at which all the desired reforms 
 can l)c provided for. 
 
30 
 
 Does it, however, follozv^ that because many reforms 
 are necessary, therefore the convention remedy is the 
 only escape f 
 
 Says the special State Bar Committee in a special report 
 made this year : **The calling of a constitutional conven- 
 tion is concededly a serious step, which should not be 
 taken except for urgent reasons." 
 
 Says Speaker Sherman : There ought to be no conven- 
 tion ''unless the necessity is clearly established." He also 
 says : "The state constitution regulates and protects 
 rights which existed before it was framed, rights and 
 principles attending or that are growths. * * * "\Ye 
 understand, therefore, that even constitutions ought to 
 develop. The currents of active life may run beyond or 
 away from them. * * * All future generations 
 cannot agree to be wrapped in the garments 
 devised by the dead." He then recites the objec- 
 tions usually urged against calling a convention and the 
 fears expressed by many, viz., that such a body would be 
 tainted with faddism, would probably be tempted to con- 
 fiscate private property, would be subject to corporation 
 influence, would indulge in untried and far-reaching labor 
 provisions, etc., etc. He then proceeds: 'Tf these rea- 
 sons are conclusive now, they will be equally so fifty years 
 or a century from now. Have the people been bereft of 
 reason? Have they lost the capacity of self-government? 
 We must have faith in the never-failing common sense of 
 the American citizen." He then states from experience 
 that the amendment method is extremely slow on account 
 of the fact that a number of amendments are introduced 
 at each session, each one of which is supposed by the 
 friends thereof to be imperiled by the submission of any 
 others, on account of the supposed limitation. 
 
31 
 
 These arguments seem far from conclusive. 
 
 If it can be established to the satisfaction of the lep^is- 
 latiire that one amendment does not necessarily imperil 
 the others, if all are placed under a specific article, or 
 under a new article to be framed, and that all amendments 
 or sections of such article could be voted upon separately 
 by the people at large, the last objection of Mr. Sherman 
 will, of course, be removed. 
 
 But if the present caHber of our legislatures is such that 
 mutual jealousies and prejudices and rivalry of different 
 interests keep measures of surpassing import from being 
 adopted, it is hard to see how such fact can be used to 
 further one plan for making constitutional changes and 
 against another. For such changes have to be supple- 
 mented by legislative action, and we are in any event 
 brought ultimately to the door of the legislature for relief. 
 And if we cannot use present constitutional provisions on 
 account of legislatures being narrow, ignorant or venal 
 (the state of public interest being such as to permit such 
 a condition of afifairs) it would seem to be a most inop- 
 portune time for upsetting all of the fundamental law of 
 the state, or inviting wholesale attacks upon it. 
 
 It is conceded all around that the present power of par- 
 tisanship in the state to-day prohibits us from getting 
 better legislators. Is there any warrant to believe, then, 
 that the men to be chosen for the new convention would 
 be selected without any reference to partisan interests? 
 Would the kings of the caucus and the bosses of the pri- 
 mary temporarily suspend their influence or yield their 
 scepter of authority in this special instance? It must 
 not be forgotten that the so-called *'plums" given out by 
 party dispensers of public office are not alone financially 
 remunerative offices, but also posts of honor, and mem- 
 
32 
 
 bership in a constitutional convention is of the latter 
 class. Nor must it be forgotten that such members are 
 required to be elected by state senate districts (two to 
 each district), and in the same manner as state senators. 
 When we recognize the caliber of the latter usually elected 
 in many districts, we cannot deceive ourselves into think- 
 ing that a convention thus chosen would consist of uni- 
 formly satisfactory ''timber." The professional corpo- 
 ration "grafter" would no doubt be much in evidence in 
 such an election. 
 
 ''A constitution," says our able speaker, "ought to 
 develop." 
 
 Ought it then to develop by extinguishing itself period- 
 ically and then being reconstructed, it being hoped or ex- 
 pected that each succeeding instrument thus created 
 would be far better than the preceding one, and that the 
 progress of human intelligence and experience would 
 finally enact the perfect creed? Such a process is not 
 "development." It is experimentation; and this upon a 
 very vital and far-reaching matter. 
 
 The "never-failing common sense of the American citi- 
 zen" is all well enough when that individual is put to^ 
 exercise that common sense upon a single issue in which 
 he clearly understands that a vote "aye" means common 
 sense and a vote "no" an absence of it. But such a case 
 is not this one. Men differ as to their ideas as to how to 
 express principles and as to what are best methods in gov- 
 ernment; and the common sense of the body politic is not 
 yet free from passion and prejudice and partisanship and 
 venality. As a composite quantity it has suffered rank 
 evils and practices to spring up and at times threaten 
 the very existence of the state or its municipalities. It 
 has looked complacently upon corruption, bribery, incom- 
 

 petence, favoritism and all the legitimate offsprings of an 
 intense partisanship. It has long and persistently tol- 
 erated and even encouraged much that is inconsistent 
 with and nauseating to common sense. 
 
 What we must aim at is a method or process with 
 which to extract the real common sense of said citizen; 
 and what we get from this, whether a double or triple 
 extract, will all be needed in framing and enforcing good 
 constitutions and law^s. 
 
 Common sense demands that we should not risk intri- 
 cate and complex, yet highly important technical systems 
 uselessly and periodically upon the hypothesis that the 
 "common sense of the American citizen" will restore it 
 whole and sound. 
 
 The better policy would seem to be to hold to that which 
 is good. And if evils press heavily upon us, and consti- 
 tutional embargoes are in the way, the skill of our public 
 agents in cutting out these latter and making way for re- 
 lief is best employed (and so far as affirmation of such 
 measures by the voting public is concerned, the same is 
 true), when directed to such matters alone. We will 
 gradually get a more perfect instrument by the attention 
 of the people l>eing directed to a specific issue at one time. 
 Not necessarily to one issue, however, but to such issues 
 only as are vital and need change and have been carefully 
 canvassed and reported upon. 
 
 Evolution, and not extinction and re-creation, is the 
 natural process for constitutional "development." 
 
 It has been frequently said of late years that Chicago 
 has grown out of the 1870 constitutional garb prepared 
 for her, like a boy grows out of a suit of clothes. 
 
 "This," said Judge Tuley at a committee meeting sev- 
 
34 
 
 eral years ago, ''is all nonsense. When a constitution 
 is made, it is made for all time." 
 
 Said Hon. Geo. W. Wall, a member of the 1870 con- 
 vention (as also of the one held in 1863), in a conversa- 
 tion with the writer, in reference to the same alleged 
 axiom : "Talk about growing out of our state constitu- 
 tion, you might as well talk of growing out of the 
 principles of government." 
 
 As to these latter statements, they certainly are sound 
 in the abstract; or as applied to a constitution made as one 
 should be, a constitution proper] containing only princi- 
 ples of government and fundamentally organic pro- 
 visions. 
 
 But they are certainly inaccurate as respects the Illinois 
 constitution of 1870 or the ordinary modern constitution, 
 in which the principles of government while outlined prop- 
 erly are nearly hidden from sight by a mass of legislation, 
 "mechanics" and method. 
 
 On the other hand, the illustration of the growing boy 
 is not quite correct. If it be clothes that we are talking 
 about, it may be said that the clothes never 'did fit the 
 boy. 
 
 The boy was put in a straight jacket, which made his 
 gait awkward from the start and dwarfed his growth ; and 
 his mother or natural guardian, the legislature, was pre- 
 vented from altering his clothes to keep pace with his con- 
 stant development. 
 
 That '*a constitution once made is made for all time" 
 can be used here, however, tO' advantage. If made tO' fit 
 perfectly the conditions of a free people such instrument 
 need not be made aeain. If not made perfectly, it can be 
 perfected by amendment, but it ought not be destroyed 
 in toto and rebuilt. This latter process is unnecessary 
 and unnatural. 
 
35 
 
 To say that after a republican slate is formed and has 
 existed a number of years, its organic system and fun- 
 damental law should be thrown aside for a new frame 
 and declaration thereof, or that i)eriodically conventions 
 of the ])eople should assemble to even consider such .1 
 step, is to condemn democracy itself and to assume that 
 it is an experimental system of government. 
 
 If there is much in the constitution which is illogical 
 and cumbersome, it should be dropped or chopped off 
 without bringing into confusion what is vital. 
 
 It is frequently said that constitutions grozv and are 
 not made. 
 
 This is true in a sense. The American constitution, 
 however, as an instrument, is conceived as coming into 
 existence at one instant of time. What is meant by the 
 expression, as applied to such a case is, that the pro- 
 visions which are inserted in such an instrument is the re- 
 sult of years of experience of organized society, and thus 
 a "growth." Of course when a state is constructed and 
 a constitution framed for it, the state is founded upon the 
 instrument. As the state grows, conditions change and 
 new provisions and radical changes in such instrument 
 may be necessary ; but this is so usually on account of in- 
 aptness and inaccuracy in language, which of course is one 
 of many human limitations. In case of changes, however, 
 the original instrument should remain the nucleus and be 
 the basis of all that follows. It should be the tree which is 
 pruned and grafted and gradually finished to stand well in 
 the established order of things. To take such an instru- 
 ment in toto and cut it loose from the moorings of public 
 acceptance and from the shore of ages of experience, and 
 launch it Ixxlily into the sea of convention debate, hoping 
 that it will drift safely back again to shore with it< sound 
 
36 
 
 timbers preserved, its loss only that of debris and un- 
 sound planks, and its general structure maintained, etc., 
 is to commit one of the most foolhardy experiments that 
 an organized people can be guilty of. 
 
 It will be said, however, that we have not thus far 
 spoken accurately of the work or function of a constitu- 
 tional convention; that all the forms of government are 
 not thus ''brought into hotchpotch or technical chaos," 
 etc. ; that the product of such a body is not final, but has 
 to be submitted to the people for adoption; that if not 
 adopted, the old constitution remains in force; and if 
 adopted, the new instrument is apt to be the better one; 
 and if so, the state is thus bettered by the operation. 
 
 But even though the state is apt to be bettered by such 
 a radical operation, the risk is there all the same. And it 
 cannot be told until after much experience whether it 
 has bettered itself by the change. 
 
 And the expense is there. We do not refer only to 
 the money spent in paying the members of the conven- 
 tion their per diem and mileage, etc., and the outlays 
 usually incidental to such a body. Figured on the latter 
 basis alone, a convention is an expensive luxury. 
 But we refer to the larger items of the time of the people 
 spent in response to alarms from the seat of convention, 
 in sending delegations to such body, in studying the new 
 instrument before election and all other expense neces- 
 sarily attendant upon the agitation of the public upon so 
 many questions at one time. 
 
 And the doubt, inconvenience and confusion are there. 
 These make, indeed, a heavy item. That involved in 
 getting the new constitution adopted, in getting passed 
 the new legislation to carry out its more or less novel 
 mandates with the contest of many different interests or 
 
37 
 
 communities for first attention, in the long train of court 
 decisions to follow upon the construction of the new pro- 
 visions, before property and personal rights have escaped 
 from the various perplexities into which they shall have 
 been thrown, and that involved in furthering public 
 improvements before the Supreme Court shall have 
 "tested" various provisions, etc., etc., and all this is indeed 
 a heavy tribute to ''change (largely) for the sake of 
 change." 
 
 Then there is the delay. Many who are now advo- 
 cating the calling of a convention do not know the vari- 
 ous steps to be taken or the time necessary to witness the 
 decrees of such a body in force. First, the next assem- 
 bly (January, 1903), would submit the question of call- 
 ing a convention to the people at the next "general" state 
 election, November, 1904. Then the next assembly after 
 that (Jan., 1905) would call the convention to meet at a 
 time fixed beyond the next ''general" election (November, 
 1906). at which election delegates would be elected. Such 
 meeting time would hardly be fixed before January, 1906, 
 in order to give delegates an opportunity to prepare for it. 
 The convention would be in session probably five or six 
 months, which would take it to the summer of 1907. 
 The convention would fix a day for a special election 
 of the people of the state to vote upon the new instru- 
 ment, "not less than two months nor more than six 
 months from its adjournment." This would bring us to 
 the legislature of January, 1909 (or a s|)ecial session in 
 1908), for legislation, // oil ivcnt zvcll. 
 
 But there is another deterrent from this costly and un- 
 certain exixjriment, which we dread much more than any 
 (»r all others, viz.: the withdrawal of so many able men 
 ( for we would hope the convention members would be 
 such, otherwise the plan would be condemned in any 
 
38 
 
 event) and of a large body of other public spirited men 
 from ordinary vocations of life, but more especially from 
 the field of conflict and effort into vv^hich the many press- 
 ing social ills of our community so urgently call them. 
 
 Many questions are pressing hard upon us far more 
 important than changing city charters or lifting 
 obstructing ''mechanics" out of our constitution. To 
 withdraw the attention of the entire state public from 
 these for the next six or seven years and have it largely 
 monopolized by mere questions of law and theory of ad- 
 ministration, etc., is a distressing outlook to any candid 
 observer. We may wake up then and find that in the 
 meantime we have lost much, very much, which it will 
 take us years to regain. 
 
 One need not specify at this point. But there is 
 enough to make the thinking citizen think gravely in 
 these days of massive inconsistencies, when riots 
 do no longer shock or alarm us; when gigan- 
 tic monopolies are uncurbed and their regula- 
 tion is literally studied intO' an assumed perplexity; 
 when gross and widespread evils are looked at by an en- 
 lightened people as "problems" instead of simply issues; 
 when communities and states and the whole nation are 
 waiting to be driven to reform (and after accomplishing 
 some temporary relief, possibly spend years in celebrat- 
 ing their achievement as ''glorious") ; w^hen the giant 
 lawyers of the country — now so much needed to help can- 
 cel complexity and subserve public economy — have nearly 
 all been withdrawn into the channels of commercialism; 
 when bribery — which America has not yet learned to call 
 treason — stalks rampant in many places ; when the high- 
 ways which lead to the altar of a citizen sacrifice are 
 blocked by long trains of patriots, each carrying tenderly 
 
39 
 
 his cure-all specific and looking around pathetically for 
 the overloaded shrine of the dead god of Theory ; when 
 whole communities are immersed in ignorance, vice and 
 squalor, "cheek by jowl" with others in the slums of idle- 
 ness and selfishness ; when the great body of patriots 
 throughout the land have not yet discovered that its 
 countless minions in suffering and unhappiness are the 
 same for whom old warriors fought and shed blood and 
 suffered long and gave up life ; when whole states even are 
 paralyzed in their crises and hesitate to take the most nat- 
 ural next step on account of the hoodo cry of **paternal- 
 isni." "irocialism," etc. ; when a trio or quartet of men have 
 power over five thousand, and are able to terrorize whole 
 communities, and to bring to the pinched faces of the 
 multi-thousands of infants of the poor the 
 added bitterness of winter's cold ; when a supine public 
 bows low to the sway of a rank partisanship and neglects 
 to oust loafers and incompetents from positions of power 
 and sacred responsibility; when the frivolous yawp of 
 ''party" is heard at the bedside of a state in sore travail 
 and in a silence which is sacred ; when opportunities 
 to encourage the thousands to earn a living are not 
 taken for fear of depriving the dozens of the incentive to 
 pile up what they cannot use; when millions are preaching 
 sacrifice as the law of individual life, while blindly and 
 doggedly assuming that the collective life of the people 
 can exist without it; when the throng are scrambling for 
 positions of vantage and jxjwer over each other in the 
 name of hope and justice and peace; when men called to 
 jury service are drowning conscience in subterfuge, and 
 escaping duty to preach alxjut ''civic pride" and inveigli 
 against the "mismanagement of our public affairs" — and 
 a wronged public neglects to take them to account ; 
 when patriots immersed in wcallii are so pa- 
 
40 
 
 tiently waiting for laws to allow them to help 
 their insolvent city, and to return it a tithe 
 of its own or to pay debts equitably its due; 
 when the whole country is straining to find 
 schemes for relief without cost and with no disturbance 
 of preconceived and inaccurate notions of "vested rights," 
 etc., etc. ; when a fearless has been succeeded by a con- 
 servative press, giving out its wholesome but carefully 
 chosen editorials while emptying out its volume of sen- 
 sationalism and triviality in which a cheap public spirit 
 willingly sops itself; when it refuses to give out all the 
 truth it sees and to confess error when its error has been 
 recognized and thus to get back to its position of influence 
 and power with the masses which was once its otwn ; — 
 
 When reforms are so delicately pressed, and those urg- 
 ing them tread softly for fear of displeasing the politician, 
 the so-called "leading citizen," the "labor vote," their 
 own sect or patrons; when even such are bowing apol- 
 ogies right and left to those who thrust their feet in the 
 way of public progress and forgetting that these, be they 
 many or few, pompous or base, can be easily placed in 
 default, and if persistent, shown up to be public enemies; 
 forgetting that the people are greater than any man or set 
 of men, or school or sect ; when even such try to bend or 
 twist the path of progress so as to pass around defiant 
 enemies of the republic; — and when they calmly tender 
 the state what is left after yielding up the tribute de- 
 manded by partisanship, greed, commercialism, preju- 
 dice, vanity and cowardice; — 
 
 In these days one of the things which Illinois least 
 needs is a constitutional convention. 
 
 For the storm clouds approaching fast from the offing 
 or weighing heavily above us are those of error and not 
 
41 
 
 oppression ; we are under the tyranny of habit and not 
 of law. 
 
 The muhitude are crowding each other hunting for 
 the pearls of life in the shells of avarice; a family united 
 in interest are acting in division ; comrades in struggle are 
 uncon^ciously pushing each other from the way; loving 
 hands unconsciously clasp the shuttles wound with heart 
 strings, and ruthlessly throw the levers of the mill which 
 grinds *'so cruelly and so fine." 
 
 There are confusion of voices, compromising of princi- 
 ples, splendid equipments lying idle, talents unused, sym- 
 pathetic eyes glaring blankly at misery, a trading in 
 broken vessels; there are gardenless homes, dwarfed 
 childhoods, **city wildernesses," lost neighborships, an 
 aimless patriotism, spasmodic fidelity, orations in plati- 
 tudes, jingo restlessness, deadening conservatism, a sur- 
 feit in letters, a blinded intelligence, weapons of hell of- 
 fered in the name of ''humanity," material wealth and 
 soul poverty, wisdom frowning mystery, strong men in 
 despair, giants decked out in the clown togs of fashion, a 
 resting upon the past, bombastic celebrations, hollow ap- 
 plause, calloused hearts, metallized lives, colossal self- 
 deceit, a palsied church, limited visions, preaching with- 
 out practice, faith without works, — And a whole lot of 
 dead men moving around. 
 
 It is said that usually the delegates to conventions of 
 this character are men of brains and experience and up- 
 right in character. This is true. But it is also true that 
 the personnel of such conventions of the last decade has 
 not been nearly so high as that of the earlier days. Com- 
 mercialism has drawn away from such forums the ablest 
 lawyers of experience which the communities afforded 
 and who were the dominating power in the conventions 
 
 ' 
 
42 
 
 "of old" ; and partisanship has not failed to use its voice 
 and authority in barring some out and letting others in. 
 
 But even assuming that the personnel of such a body 
 to be called in Illinois should be of the best, it would be 
 too large to give the best results. 
 
 We would not view with intense alarm a commission 
 of five or seven of the very ablest lawyers and publicists 
 of the state, given full power to make constitutional al- 
 terations. Such men would be the least prone tO' make 
 unnecessary changes. But we would view with 
 deep concern the willingness of the state to intrust them 
 with this power where unnecessary, or the state of mu- 
 nicipal life which necessitated summoning them tO' so act. 
 
 However, our concern in such case would be increased 
 if the number of members thus attempting to serve the 
 public were multiplied from the few to a hundred or 
 more. The result would be plenty of debate, but less de- 
 liberate study, much more dissension, more unweildiness 
 in the movements of the body, a less complete and com- 
 prehensive and more poorly knit instrument in the end. 
 
 Now, the people of the state have ultimately to pass 
 upon all constitutional changes. And hence the ques- 
 tion is one not solely of getting the best document 
 formed, but of getting the best which the people can be 
 nduced to accept, in order that the state-wi'de agitation 
 and the expense, etc., may not be wasted or go for naught. 
 
 We would, therefore, not favor even any "commis- 
 sion" plan (whether made up by a special committee of 
 the assembly or of outsiders specially appointed), other 
 than one requiring such body to first recommend to the as- 
 sembly the changes approved. For the assembly could 
 thus be used as a gauge to test the public sentiment upon 
 the questions treated and also the capacity of the public to 
 
43 
 
 be educated up to the work of the commission if it were 
 radical or drastic and yet meritorious. That part of the 
 work which would pass the assembly by a two-thirds 
 vote would thus be well assured of ultimate adoption by 
 the people at large. 
 
 The natural result of such a permanent (the amend- 
 ment) plan would be: That the most needed amendments 
 would be assured ; those of more questionable merit, or 
 upon which the people would be apt to be divided and 
 which would suffer a doubtful fate at the polls, would 
 be eliminated, while the parts of the public body in a nor- 
 mal condition would not be disturbed. 
 
 While to adopt the other or ''convention" policy 
 is to commit the state to a succession of periodical and 
 strenuous parturitions at each of which it has to choose 
 between surrendering- its old self for the new and untried 
 prodigy, or having experienced its lalx)rs for nothing. 
 
 In the foregoing pages and in the legal argument ap- 
 pended hereto the present constitution of Illinois has been 
 much criticised. But we do not mean that this shall be 
 taken to reflect upon the caliber and ability of the men 
 who in the convention of 1869-70 framed up that instru- 
 ment. In fact we believe that one of the most forlorn 
 hopes indulged to-day by many is that it is possible in 
 the present state of partisanship, etc., to approach it in 
 point of ability and high-mindedness in selecting by vote 
 a new similar body. That convention met shortly after 
 the war of the rebellion and l)efore the public had learned 
 to place power where power belonged; and to sacrifice 
 much in demanding that it shall be rigidly exercised in 
 the public's interest rather than to add to the public's 
 burdens that of an awkward or hindering system; will- 
 ing to be driven to cure first that which first ails or to 
 
44 
 
 first replace that which first gets out of place. In fact 
 we have not reached such a policy yet. But all the same 
 we will be forced sooner or later to adopt it. 
 
 No doubt the instrument framed by those men would 
 have been far simpler and broader if they had not had to 
 face the question of ultimate assent by the people at large. 
 The latter demanded with much emphasis that many 
 things properly subjects of legislation be inserted in the 
 constitution. Had the convention refused to yield to 
 this demand their work might have been rejected and 
 their time wasted. 
 
 Then again the prejudices, habits and schools of 
 thought then prevalent more or less environed these able 
 men as those now existing do the able men of to- 
 day. Each generation can more easily see the faults of 
 the preceding one. We should therefore steer clear of 
 recklessly changing something evolved from the experi- 
 ence of the past, and on the other hand of assuming that 
 because able men of a former generation framed an in- 
 strument it is so sacred that it shall never be changed. 
 
 We have elsewhere said that while the major part of 
 our constitution is ''legislation," yet it is good legisla- 
 tion. It is for this reason that we have not been incom- 
 moded more and earlier by the fetters in said document. 
 Some of such legislation was, however, poor, as was 
 inevitable, and much that was wholesome in 1870 has 
 been rendered more or less noxious by changing condi- 
 tions. This about accounts for the sum of constitutional 
 evils from which we now suffer. 
 
 That there are not more of them is a good object les- 
 son in proving that had we to-day a legislature of as able 
 caliber as that represented by the convention of 1870 
 (which in reality we should have), the said body could 
 
45 
 
 be half as great in numbers, its sessions half as frequent 
 and half as long, and the public get four times or more 
 the vital legislation which it gets to-day. 
 
 Another thing to be remembered is that it is idle for 
 Illinois to change her constitution without bettering her 
 legislature. The best constitution possible to draft or 
 conceive of can not furnish good laws or prohibit bad 
 ones any more than good laws can in and of themselves 
 produce good citizenship. 
 
 The work that Chicago has thus far done in redeem- 
 ing her city council from the hand of the briber and cor- 
 ruptionist is an invaluable preliminary to appropriate 
 charter reforms. The work now being done to improve 
 her representation in the assembly is likewise in line with 
 real and permanent betterment. 
 
 As the field of legislation is so much wider than that 
 covered by the constitution, we would expect that even 
 a cursory study of the former would reveal many oppor- 
 tunities for the betterment of Chicago's municipal con- 
 ditions which need not wait upon constitutional amend- 
 ment or revision. Even the principal ones of the six or 
 eight radical local reforms which we are all endeavoring 
 to bring about need not wait for constitutional 
 amendment, but am be cured at Spriu^i^field by Icps- 
 latioti in the coming winter months; legislation which 
 will not need to be repealed or even substantially changed 
 by the adoption '^f proposed constitutional amendments. 
 This may seem a bold statement to some; and 
 the tempting challenge to substantiate it can not be ac- 
 cepted with(nit prejudice to the frame of this report 
 already long; and much we have written along this line 
 will therefore have to be omitted. But it is true never- 
 theless. If this subject is thoroughly worked up and cov- 
 
46 
 
 ered, the prospects of much relief the coming winter is 
 not discouraging. Chicago's representation in the com- 
 ing session will be better than that in the last. She has, 
 too, as the assembly is at present constituted, some able 
 members, and a listening court in the country members. 
 Most of the latter are ruggedly honest; there are many 
 men of ability and at least one giant. 
 
 That we need constitutional changes badly there can 
 be no doubt. Therefore let this work go on. If we 
 are truly sensitive of other and graver matters, we are 
 more sensitive than ever of things "out of whack'* in our 
 frame of state and local government. Therefore let the 
 work go on. 
 
 But while prosecuting it do not let us wrap ourselves 
 up in the fond but vain hope that constitutions and laws 
 can redeem a people from inherent vices or save them 
 from decay, which past generations have so frequently 
 done. We must not forget that Rome had a system of 
 laws than which the brains of man has scarcely ever pro- 
 duced a wiser. Mechanical and legal limitations obstruct 
 progress ; that is why we want to remove them. But they 
 have no life-giving virtues. And one can almost feel the 
 spirit of resentment springing up in a sensitive state as 
 she realizes how many will hide under the agitation for 
 technical change to put off the day of ultimate reckoning, 
 or who will offer to rise and shine in convention halls as 
 their meed of service in a period of much communal dis- 
 tress. In all this movement and agitation we must not 
 forget just what we can accomplish by law and what we 
 can not. We will thus produce better law and get more 
 accurate results. He is not master of the law who does 
 not see its limits. 
 
 There is also a very erroneous but common notion 
 
47 
 
 about the supposed drastic limitations in our constitution 
 upon local or special legislation. It is not generally un- 
 derstood that these are not limitations u\xm the power 
 of the assembly in such cases only where a general law can 
 be made to answer. Wherever conditions obtain in one 
 community of the state and not in others a law special in 
 application to that community and affecting such condi- 
 tions will be upheld. 
 
 This is a wise rule and should be strictly enforced by 
 the legislature itself without any constitutional direction 
 therefor. The only objection to having it in the consti- 
 tution is the fact that placed there it gives or fosters :i 
 disposition or gives an inducement to those affected to 
 test every such law in the courts before the classification 
 made by the act in respect to conditions is accepted as 
 sound. 
 
 So, too, the general public forgets that the police 
 power of the state — the safety valve to constitutional 
 troubles and legal ''boiling pots" — is ample in most in- 
 stances to relieve legislative and municipal ills where 
 other remedies fail. The ramifications of its principles 
 are wide and deep; so much so that the Supreme Court 
 of the United States has declined to attempt to define it 
 or to say as to what subjects ajid in wliat cases it shall 
 apply. 
 
48 
 Conclusion. 
 
 In conclusion we desire to say that there is no necessity 
 for much wrangling over this question of convention or 
 none. If the advantages and disadvantages of the two 
 plans for a change have not been satisfactorily treated 
 here, the delegates in the coming convention can assign 
 the work to a committee of its members and have it more 
 accurately performed. 
 
 In almost every address, editorial or treatise on this 
 subject thus far issued it is conceded that the calling of 
 a convention is a serious step which should only be taken 
 if necessary. 
 
 Our efforts have been therefore directed towards show- 
 ing that it is not necessary. The first question is, how 
 wide in scope can single amendments or amendments tO' 
 be voted on at one time be made? This is a purely legal 
 question, and has been fully argued in the annexed pam- 
 phlet, and later will be presented the conclusions of the 
 examining counsel when they come in, whether confirma- 
 tory or negative. 
 
 The next ciuestion is, if the single amendment plan be 
 not feasible, how soon and by what steps can the present 
 unreasonable prohibitions upon amendments be repealed ? 
 
 And the next question after that is under what circum- 
 stances is calling a constitutional convention justified? 
 
 The first two questions are legal ones purely; and the 
 last is substantially that. For to see how far and in 
 what direction certain provisions reach intO' state or mu- 
 nicipal life, and to tell what changes may be necessary to 
 allow advocated reforms, etc., is the work of lawyers. 
 
 Yet our newspapers are still publishing the "senti- 
 
49 
 
 ments" of all trades and classes upon this non-sentimental 
 question. What are the "sentiments" of the people at large 
 as to one of Dr. Senn's surgical operations? It will be 
 answered that in this case the people are the surgeons 
 who in voting upon submitted amendments, etc., ulti- 
 mately operate upon themselves. True, but diagnosing 
 their legal troubles and tracing symptoms to their source 
 and framing up and recommending legal weapons for the 
 occasion and explaining their use and "proving the case," 
 so that the unskilled can act intelligently in voting upon 
 remedies, is the work of skilled hands and not a matter of 
 sentiment. Above all, it takes work; and the public 
 should soon grow into the habit of demanding this as a 
 condition precedent to its giving serious attention to prof- 
 fers of remedies. 
 
 It is not a subject for prejudice or hobby-riding. And 
 if the earnest people engaged in this work shall after calm 
 deliberation conclude to renew the crucial experiment 
 of a constitutional convention in Illinois, we should all 
 join in and sacrifice much to make it a success, and, 
 above all, to put into it the best brains, the most rugged 
 fidelity and the most thorough experience that the state 
 affords. And if in spite of our efforts, crises occur and 
 great dangers threaten, we should then join in earnest 
 appeals to "the common sense of the Americ:m citizen." 
 Possibly we would be put to this and in some instances 
 there might be little else to do. 
 
 No one who studies and reflects upon the question of 
 constitutional conventions in America but will wonder 
 why the people of so many states have resorted to them 
 so frequently. These communities have acquired the 
 "convention habit." No better service could be done by 
 a legal author than to show up to a "going" state the un- 
 
50 
 
 naturalness of calling such conventions, and to help 
 break up this habit. But this must be the work of other 
 hands than ours. 
 
 Judge Jameson, in his work on "Constitutional Con- 
 ventions," defends them as necessary in case many and 
 radical changes are needed. He states that in this way 
 ''the state has a right to reproduce itself as an animal 
 does." 
 
 But this simile is not similar. In the case of the ani- 
 mal it can live with its offspring. But in the case of the 
 state, if it begets such an offspring, the parent is trans- 
 formed and merged into the latter and the old state is 
 extinct. If the state has become so effete or diseased 
 that it threatnes to die, then it should transform itself, 
 and a convention is not inappropriate to that end. 
 
 In passing upon the merits of the two principal classes 
 of constitutions, viz. : written and unwritten, that author 
 recommends the unwritten constitution "for a commu- 
 nity whose political training has been carried to a high 
 degree of perfection." "But," says he, "for a commu- 
 nity whose training has been imperfect, or which is sub- 
 ject to fits of political apathy, alternating with those of 
 intense zeal for reform, the written constitution is doubt- 
 less the better one." 
 
 The simplest written constitution is nearest to the 
 unwritten one; and a periodical and successive making 
 over of constitutions, as is usual in conventions, is farther 
 than ever away from a wise and stable policy in respect 
 to organic form and foundational principles. It is hard 
 therefore to see a reason for the author's tolerance to- 
 ward such bodies. The careful, deliberate and specific 
 amendment method is all that Illinois needs or is apt to 
 need; and if we could in never so humble a manner do 
 
51 
 
 something definite towards making her constitutional 
 conventions a thing only of historical interest, we would 
 deem it a kindly office which it were a privilege to per- 
 form. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that there has been but one 
 Magna Charta and but one constitution of the United 
 States. The latter has had fifteen amendments; but 
 the first ten of them are simply declarations usual in the 
 Bill of Rights, and it has been finally held that they do 
 not add to or detract from state powers. The first 
 twelve were passed very shortly after the union was 
 formed ; and hence but three amendments have been 
 required in over one hundred years. Yet the functions 
 or ramifications in actual working of the federal system 
 have grown wonderfully in that time, and the people of 
 the wh(jle nation, as such, have been much more closely 
 knit together in personal interest and relationship. 
 
 No reflecting lawyer in Illinois can doubt but that had 
 we retained the original constitution of 1818 and made 
 specific changes by amendments from time to time, as 
 needed, we would now have a much better and far simpler 
 constitution, and we would have been saved the state- 
 wide agitation of 1848, 1863 and 1870, and the big grist 
 of new decisions and the many complexities in the law 
 which followed in the wake of the adoption of the consti- 
 tution of 1848 and 1870. 
 
 What a difference in a state's tranquillity a natural 
 or erroneous method of making constitutional changes 
 may make is shown by the history of the two neighlx:>ring 
 states of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, of appar- 
 ently equal intelligence and enlightenment. The former 
 has made its amendments through conventions, and for 
 much of the period of her existence the question of call- 
 
52 
 
 ing a constitutional convention has been required to be 
 periodically submitted to the people for a vote. The re- 
 sult is that the product of her conventions in the way of 
 amendments has been oftener rejected than accepted by 
 the electors at the polls ; and the people of the whole state 
 have been teased and annoyed by the question of calling 
 a convention being submitted to them over twenty times 
 in less than seventy-five years. 
 
 On the other hand, Massachusetts has not been agi- 
 tated by a convention since 1820; many amendments sub- 
 mitted to the legislature have been adopted and scarcely 
 any rejected. 
 
 The policy of the American states ever since their or- 
 ganization tO' gradually fetter their legislatures more and 
 more is well reflected in the constant growth in length 
 of their constitutions. The present constitutions of most 
 of the older states are usually about three times as long 
 as the originals. That oi Virginia is six times as long; 
 that of Illinois is two and one-half as long. The original 
 constitution of New Hampshire conatined 600 words; 
 those of Mississippi, established in 1875, and of South 
 Dakota, adopted in 1889, contain each over 26,000, and 
 are each about forty times as long. 
 
 Mr. Thorpe, in an article upon Recent Constitutions, 
 says that the length of the constitutions of the new states 
 lately admitted to the Union, "proves that the people have 
 lost faith in their legislatures." And Mr. Bryce says 
 "they witness to a distrust by the people of their own 
 agents and officers." And the latter, after remarking 
 that the less the legislatures are trusted the worse they 
 will be and that therefore the first step to reform is to im- 
 prove them, concludes: "But the improvement of the 
 legislature is just what the Americans despair of, or, as 
 they would prefer to say, have not time to attend to." 
 
53 
 
 They will soon, however, have to take time. For when 
 the public life is gradually becoming more and more in- 
 terwoven with private life, and the administration of its 
 affairs arc telling so directly upon the daily interest and 
 economy and life of its citizens, this duty is becoming 
 one of self-protection. 
 
 Had this duty been recognized earlier in Illinois, and 
 had the constitution-makers of the earlier day driven the 
 people to meet it by refusing to attempt to make consti- 
 tutions a cover of retreat for the public in shirking this 
 duty, it is possible that we would have long ago reached 
 the turning point in this vital matter of public policy; 
 and that we would now be much further along in the 
 road towards the goal of uniform excellency in private 
 citizenship, which w-ill cancel evil in public life as the 
 light dispels the darkness. 
 
 However this may be, the first duty of Illinois is to 
 improve her legislature; for big questions are coming 
 fast which will need men of training, of rugged honesty, 
 of courage and of brains. 
 
 Tn the annexed opinion it is said: "It (the conven- 
 tion) is. however, well and naturally adapted to the con- 
 struction or creation of a state; anrl in fact until the 
 state shall have become so diseased as to need practical 
 re-creation, we can see no other use for it." 
 
 If Illinois were in such a diseased condition, it would 
 be our duty to confess it. But there are very few, if any. 
 within the borders of the state who can at present sec any 
 sucli crisis as this. 
 
 Illinois may well envy Massachusetts in her record in 
 having for nearly a century adhered to a constitution 
 compo.*:ed in chief of organic provisions and governmental 
 principles, and the total absence from her history of any 
 
54 
 
 but the one revision convention. Her policy in this re- 
 gard is directly traceable to the great Webster, whose 
 marvelously clear insight, broad vision, and splendid equi- 
 pose of judgment and the dedication of whose magnificent 
 talents to America's sovereign weal seem to gather more 
 telling evidence and to settle into more grateful remem- 
 brance as her commonwealths grow old. 
 
 Respectfully submitted. 
 
 Harry S. Mecartney^ 
 
 Chairman. 
 E. Allen Frost, 
 Robert McMurdy, 
 
 Committee. 
 
r^ 
 
 h 
 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The SCOPE of AMENDMENTS to the 
 ILLINOIS CONSTITUTION, 
 
 L 
 
 Would an ainendmeiit to tlic Illinois Constitution 
 drafted in the form as annexed liereto, be invalid? 
 
 Section 2 of Article XIV of the Illinois Constitution 
 is as follows : 
 
 "Section 2. Amendments t(^ this Constitution may 
 be proposed in either House of the General Assembly, 
 and if the same shall be voted for by two-thirds of all 
 the members elected to each of the two Houses, such pro- 
 posed amendments, together with the yeas and nays of 
 each House thereon, shall be entered in full on their re- 
 spective journals; and said amendments shall be sub- 
 mitted to the electors of this state for adoption or rejec- 
 tion at the next election of members of the General As- 
 sembly, in such manner as may be prescribed by law. 
 The proposed amendments shall be published in full at 
 least three months preceding: the election, and if a ma- 
 jority of the electors voting at such election shall vote for 
 the proposed amendments, they shall become a part of 
 this constitution. But the General Assembly shall have 
 no pozcer to propose amendments to more than one arii- 
 cle of this constitution at the same session, nor to the same 
 article oftener than once in four years. 
 
 We quote from the report on this matter made by the 
 writer and Enoch J. Price. Esq.. to the Federation two 
 years ago. 
 
i 
 
 "Th'j provision that amendments to but on^ article may 
 be proposed at the same session of the General Assembly 
 has frequently confused the public mind. The constitu- 
 tion is divided into fourteen articles. An indefinite num- 
 ber of amendments might be submitted at the same term, 
 provided only that they all purport to amend the same 
 article. 
 
 'The amendments v^^hich may be sulmittea are not lim- 
 ited to amending the subject-matter of the article which 
 they purport to amend, but may in fact amend several 
 of the articles of the constitution at one and the same 
 time. This is an exceedingly important principle to be 
 kept in mind. The Supreme Court has expressly so held 
 in the case of Wilson v. Board of Trustees, 133 111., 443, 
 which involved the constitutionality of the act under 
 which the Sanitary District of Chicago was organized. 
 The question arose as to the effect of the amendment of 
 Section 31 of Article IV of the constitution adopted in 
 1878, upon Section 9 of Article IX, relating tO' the 
 power to make special assessments for local improve- 
 ments. The court held that the amendment operated to 
 amend Section 9, Article IX, precisely as if it had inserted 
 into the body of that article the name of drainage dis- 
 trict as one of the corporations which might be given the 
 power to levy special assessments. 
 
 "Our conclusion is that a single amendment may be 
 made broad enough in its terms to give the most com- 
 prehensive power to accomplish all the reforms in local 
 government needed or desired by the people of Cook 
 County, and, consequently, if such an amendment can be 
 secured a constitutional convention is not needed for that 
 purpose.** 
 
 It is this conclusion which Speaker Sherman announces 
 that he "disagrees with," which a member of the 
 
Chicago bar in a banquet opinion calls "subterfuge" and 
 "an ingenious scheme," and which a committee of the 
 State Bar Association after some argument thinks to be a 
 mere attempt at "smuggling provisions into the constitu- 
 tion," to constitute a "palpable trick." and "believes 
 would be held invalid by the Supreme Court." 
 
 Under our present constitution each bill passed by the 
 Legislature must have expressed in its title the general 
 subject affected by it. 
 
 Each bill must also embrace but one subject. 
 
 Many acts passed since 1870 have been held invalid on 
 account of these provisions. And lawyers habitually test- 
 ing laws by them naturally look for a similar limitation 
 or naturally incline to give a similar construction to sup- 
 posed kindred clauses in the constitution. It is be- 
 lieved that this practice is largely responsible for the 
 opinions of these gentlemen, by which they give to the 
 amendment provision a meaning which requires language 
 not in the provision itself. 
 
 It is said by our worthy contemporaries that the true 
 intent and meaning of this provision is : 
 
 1. That only one article can be amended at a time. 
 
 2. That such amendment must directly relate or be 
 germane to the "subject" of the article. 
 
 3. That it must not amend or repeal the provisions of 
 any other article. 
 
 It is quite clear that only the first of these three re- 
 quirements is expressed in the amendment provision it- 
 self. 
 
 The other two have to be supplied, if at all, by mere 
 inference. 
 
1. As to the first requirement, so long as we are deal- 
 ing with ''articles" we will adhere to it. We will say 
 that all the amendments, no matter how many, which 
 are proposed at one session must be placed under and 
 purport to amend but one "article." (Later, however, 
 we will show that this limitation does not refer to the 
 portions of the constitution other than "articles," which 
 are of course amendable; and that this being so, the bars 
 are down at all events for any amendments deemed ad- 
 visable by legislature and people.) 
 
 2. So far as the second requirement is concerned, it 
 is clear that the term "subject" is not a definite attribute 
 or accompaniment of the v/ord or item or division "arti- 
 cle" of the constitution. 
 
 There are headings to various articles, such as "rev- 
 enue," "corporations," etc. 
 
 But these are nowhere declared to be indicative of any 
 distinct subject of the article which should be considered 
 as forever peculiar to the article itself. 
 
 They are no more than mere appellations for con- 
 venience, fairly indicative of the general subject or sub- 
 jects covered by the provisions placed under each head- 
 ing. 
 
 There are likewise in some articles a number of such 
 headings set in various places throughout them, and of 
 equal prominence in the matter of size of type; and these 
 are nowhere declared to be mere subheads or divisions of 
 a leading or general or "head" appellation or "subject." 
 
 As said before, a statute to be valid must, according to 
 our constitution, have but one subject, and that subject 
 must be embraced in its title. The provisions of the act 
 must be fairly germane to the subject or object expressed 
 
in the title of the act. If some of the sections are thus 
 germane and others are not, /. c, relate to other subjects, 
 the latter sections will fail, and the former will stand; but 
 if they are not separable so as to leave the main object of 
 the act unimpaired by excludinj^: the one class and retain- 
 ing the other, both are invalid and the whole statute fails. 
 
 The test of the validity of any section of the act in 
 this respect is: Is it fairly germane to said expressed 
 subject ? 
 
 But this test is applied to each statute solely by virtue 
 of the constitutional requirement therefor. 
 
 Before such provisions were adopted and adhered to 
 the whole field of method of procedure was open to the 
 legislature. Congress to-day has no such limitations. It 
 legislated in respect to the Cuban constitution by pro- 
 visions in the bill for ''appropriations for the army and 
 navy." 
 
 The practice of the "sharp" members of the Assembly 
 and the floaters of private schemes for gain, hiding vital 
 provisions away in some obscure corner of a bill osten- 
 sibly passed for another purpose, was no doubt the occa- 
 sion for the adoption of these limitati ins. It was the 
 result of treating public servants as public enemies and 
 of attempts to fetter them — which was the cardinal 
 feature of the work of the constitution makers of 1870. 
 
 It is probable that general loose methods in fram- 
 ing bills and arranging their subject-matter, from which 
 much inconvenience in referring to statutes accrued to 
 the bar and courts, was also partly resix)nsible for said 
 limitations. The whole matter, however, is logically one 
 of convenience or method only and has scarcely a proper 
 place in a constitution. It could be covered by a rule 
 of the Assembly that no bill would be considered unless 
 
it were framed within these lines. And if perchance 
 after an act had been passed some section was found to 
 be naturally out of place, it could be noted and referred 
 to by the publisher of the statutes at the point where it 
 logically fitted. 
 
 An occasional inconvenience in this respect would be an 
 infinitely less evil than the frequency with which laws of 
 the most vital importance are declared void after years of 
 agitation and expenditure of public energy for their 
 passage. Relief is thus denied, solely on account of the 
 mere wording of a title or the arrangement of subject- 
 matter. 
 
 We repeat, there is no expressed requirement in the 
 constitution that amendments to- one article must relate 
 to the subject of that article; and secondly, there is no 
 declaration as to what is the subject of an article. 
 
 Nor is there any uniform plan of the constitution by 
 which a distinct subject is placed under a distinct article 
 to be seized on for the application of this doctrine of infer- 
 ence. There are in many articles a number of subjects. 
 
 What, for instance, is the distinct subject of Article 
 II, headed ''Bill of Rights"? Its first section declares 
 that "all men are by nature free and independent," and 
 that ''among their inalienable rights are life, liberty and 
 the pursuit of happiness." In the ^th the privilege of the 
 writ of habeas corpus is preserved. The 15th directs 
 that "the military shall be in strict subordination to the 
 civil power," while the 20th and last declares that "a fre- 
 quent recurrence to the fundamental principles of civil 
 government is absolutely necessary to preserve the bless- 
 ings of liberty." 
 
 The provision as to habeas corpus could as well be 
 placed under the article upon the judicial department. 
 
The provision in the i6th section that no soldier shall 
 be quartered in any house without consent of the owner, 
 etc., could appropriately be placed under the article 
 headed "militia." 
 
 So, too, the provisions in Article V in respect to the 
 veto of the governor could as well be placed under Arti- 
 cle IV relating to the General Assembly, and the passage 
 of laws; as also might the sections in said Article V pro- 
 viding for the adjournment of that body by the governor 
 in case of a disagreement between its two constituent 
 houses. 
 
 Therefore the supposed inhibition against amendmg an 
 article bv inserting therein anything not germane to its 
 subject fails upon analysis. For, first, there is no such in- 
 hibition expressed (which is sufficient in and of itself) ; 
 second, there is no declaration of one distinct techni- 
 cal ''subject" to each article; and third, there is no uni- 
 form arrangement of "subject" to "article" throughout 
 the entire constitution from which such prohibition might 
 be even vaguely inferred. 
 
 As to this supposed requirement in question which we 
 have numbered 2 above, it must not be forgotten that the 
 draft of the Civic Federation amendment does not violate 
 it even if it does exist. 
 
 If it be said that the general "subject" of Article X is 
 "Counties" — the appellation or heading ^lereof — cer- 
 tainly the said amendment relates to such subject, and the 
 various specific clauses therein are fairly conducive to an 
 effective scheme of consolidation. 
 
 But we have no doubt but that the alleecd requirement 
 as to "one subject" and "germaneness," etc., is entirely 
 imaginative and untenable. 
 
8 
 
 3- As to the 3rd supposed prohibition, viz. : that any 
 amendment to an article should not directly or indirectly 
 amend or repeal the provisions of any other article: 
 
 It is here that our friends seeking to give a stringent 
 effect to the limitation in question become boldest, and it 
 is that that is the specific proposition of the State Bar 
 Committee. 
 
 There is no expressed inhibition in the said amend- 
 ment section against an amendment to one article amend- 
 ing the provisions of any other article. Here, too, uur 
 friends can onb- supply their proposed limitations by ^n 
 ference. 
 
 It must be remembered that even in making statute 
 law there is no such limitation. An amendment to the 
 ''revenue" statute can validly repeal, either expressly or 
 impliedly, a section of statute on ''counties" or "cities'* 
 or "fees and salaries." The requirement as to one "sub- 
 ject," etc., has no application to repeal by implication. 
 Geisen v. Heiderich, 104 111., 537. 
 
 And what can be repealed impliedly or by language 
 unexpressed can be repealed expressly. 
 
 These rules are so well settled and the instances in 
 which they have been applied so common that it is neces- 
 sary only to state them. 
 
 So if our friends' 3d and inferred limitation were ad- 
 hered to it would cause constitutional amendments to be 
 decidedly more narrow in scope than statutes. 
 
 If it were tenable in statute law it would be pretty hard 
 to see just where the limits upon legislative action lay; 
 and the choice of remedies in most instances would be 
 decimated or so reduced, that, taken in connection with 
 the other requirements above mentioned as to germane- 
 
I 
 
 ness and taken also in connection with other prohibitions, 
 viz. : that laws should not be local or special, etc., etc. — 
 the Legislature would be apt to gradually work to a 
 "dead stop." 
 
 So as to the constitution. Our friends would restrict 
 us to curing one at a time the many sores upon the i>ublic 
 body corporate and in each instance make us hunt fo" 
 and adopt only some specific which could afifect no oth.;r 
 part of the body and which ct:»uld be proven to be of 
 peculiar and independent origin. What this might lead 
 to is not hard to conceive. 
 
 The speaker of the last Assembly, Hon. Lawrence Y. 
 Sherman, in his address to the House Committee of the 
 Whole upon the resolution for a constitutional conven- 
 tion earnestly urged as his chief reason that the amend- 
 ment plan was too slow, apparently supposing that the 
 limitations thereon were as strict and severe as the three 
 requirements above treated. 
 
 He said: "If I could vote every two years on one of 
 the amendments wanted by the Civic Federation alone, I 
 would be lOO years old before I had voted on the last of 
 them." He then mentions a number of other Chicago 
 bodies "who want amendments of great pith and mo- 
 ment, and we can think up a few amendments here in the 
 legislature." 
 
 The able and conscientious advocate had probably 
 never used his legal acumen to think tliat if such were 
 the case it was an overwhelming argument against the 
 proposition that such a pmhibition l)eing valid. 
 
 If it took 50 or 30 years to cure but a portion of the 
 ills which had grown upon the body politic in 30 years, 
 what was to be done with the remainder? And what 
 was then to be done with the volume of tu'^v ones which 
 
lO 
 
 had sprung up in the meantime, viz. : during the second 
 half or latter part of 50 or 60 years? Such evils do 
 not grow singly on account of gradually increasing con- 
 tamination, and these new ones might be thrice as great as 
 the others. 
 
 How long would the race continue? How long would 
 ic take for municipal disease to overcome the state and 
 work her dissolution? 
 
 To' calmly contemplate such a thing is suicidal. 
 
 And to attempt to invite the state to a convention as 
 the other alternative is little more kind or considerate. 
 
 To say that the people through their delegates fettered 
 themselves from developing their constitution along with 
 their growth, from which handicap public evils would 
 necessarily grow and intensify and get a great start of 
 remedial processes and gradually grow worse and worse, 
 and that the state thus diseased must be deprived of a 
 natural and orderly remedy unless it exposed itself to all 
 sorts of new diseases (occurring from vicious and possi- 
 bly dominating elements in convention), is to convict the 
 state's representatives in convention of the same suicidal 
 intentions. 
 
 What is there, therefore, of benignity and usefulness 
 in such limitations which should impel a court to multiply 
 in effect the said provision and add tO' the restriction 
 upon amending "one article'* at a time, the two new 
 ones, 1st, that such amendments must be ''germane" to a 
 supposed subject, and 2nd, must not in effect amend any 
 other article or repeal any section thereof. 
 
 The fact is, that in this case, as in the limitations upon 
 statutes above mentioned, the whole matter is one of con- 
 venience. 
 
 The term ''subject" is a relative term as here used. 
 
II 
 
 Laws may be different in their subject-matter in 
 a sense. A law regulating the taking of property for 
 public use has little resemblance in its subject-matter to 
 one entitled "Fees of city officers." Yet in large cities 
 it might be found highly desirable that certain city offi- 
 cers should constitute a body to value land taken for pub- 
 lic use (as is the case in some states), and that the 
 regulations and laws in regard to the fees of such officers 
 be radically changed to meet the imposing of these new 
 duties. 
 
 Such a law which in providing for said body and pre- 
 scribing methods of procedure under "Eminent Domain" 
 would thus in effect repeal or amend certain provisions 
 of the "Fees and Salaries act," would be held constitu- 
 tional in spite of the expressed limitations above referred 
 to. But if a similar proceeding or provision therefor 
 were attempted under the constitution with no such ex- 
 pressed limitation, our careful friends say it would be 
 invalid. 
 
 A more studied and deliberate dissent from the said 
 opinion given the Federation as to the scope of the one 
 amendment, etc., is contained in a report to the Illinois 
 State Bar Association made the present year (1902) by 
 the special committee upou the "Expediency of Calling a 
 Constitutional Convention," signed by Sigmund Zeisler, 
 Esq., and four other members of that body, viz. : Messrs. 
 William E. Church, Lester H. Strawn, Logan Hay and 
 James M. Sheean. That the report should be given its 
 full weight, pains were taken to state at the outset that 
 "the re|M:)rt does not, as is sometimes the case, express 
 merely the opinion of the chairman of the committee, but 
 reflects the deliberate judgment of the members signing 
 the same." 
 
12 
 
 The above conclusion in said opinion is set out in full 
 and is then treated of as follows : 
 
 ''Your committee believes that under the authority of 
 Wilson V. Board of Trustees^ cited by Mr. Mecartney, 
 an amendment of one article of the constitution may inci- 
 dentally have the effect of amending a provision con- 
 tained in another article. But we do not believe that that 
 case is an authority for the proposition that under the 
 guise of an amendment purporting to amend only one 
 article, provisions may be smuggled intO' the Constitution 
 which directly change one or more other articles of the 
 Constitution. Otherwise it would be a very easy matter 
 to write an entirely new Constitution in the shape of an 
 amendment purporting to amend only one article. Arti- 
 cle X of the Constitution deals with the organization of 
 counties and with county governmental agencies. As 
 regards the administration of justice, this is treated by 
 the Constitution as a separate matter in Article VI, en- 
 titled Judicial Department. This latter article contains 
 special provisions respecting the courts of record of Cook 
 County and justices of the peace in Chicago. The 
 framers of the Constitution thereby clearly indicated a 
 sharp division between the administration of law even in 
 the specially singled out County of Cook and the legis- 
 lative and executive functions of government even in the 
 again specially singled out County of Cook. A provision 
 for the consolidation of legislative and executive govern- 
 mental functions within the County of Cook or some part 
 thereof is a proper amendment of Article X. Incident- 
 ally it amends Section 22 of Article IV forbiddmg spe- 
 cial legislation as to county, town and city affairs. To 
 this extent it must be upheld. But to add thereto a pro- 
 vision resf^cting the abolition of justices of the peace 
 and constables, though applicable only to Chicago or 
 
13 
 
 Cook County, is a palpable trick U) evade the prohibition 
 ao^ainst amending more than one article at the same time, 
 because such a '>rovision does not incidentally, but di- 
 rectly amend Article VI. 
 
 "In like manner, the framers of the C(jnstitution 
 sharply distinguished the matter of revenue, an incident 
 of which is the incurring of debt, from all other govern- 
 mental affairs, and treated it in a separate article, viz. : 
 Article IX. Not a word bearing on this subject can be 
 found in Article X. Any provision, therefore, which in- 
 creases the limit of Chicago's debt incurring power is a 
 direct amendment of Article TX, notwithstanding the fact 
 that /;/ form it be an amendment to Article X by being 
 made a rider on an amendment which is germane to 
 Article X. 
 
 'Tor these reasons we regard as unwise the agitation 
 for the amendment proposed by Mr. Mecartncy and en- 
 dorsed by the Civic Federation of Chicago; if adopted, 
 we believe it would be held invalid bv the Supreme 
 Court. Moreover, this amendment ignores the balance 
 of the state which is deeply interested at least in the mat- 
 ter of obtaining a thorough recasting of the judicial sys- 
 tem. It ignores the necessitv for fundamental changes 
 in our revenue system. It takes no account of affirm- 
 ative i^oz'entmental principles which ougl^t *•> be en- 
 grafted upon the Constitution." 
 
 It would seem quite clear that the.se suggestions do not 
 meet those al)ove outlined. 
 
 The learned gentlemen put clau.ses into the amendment 
 provision which clearly are not there, viz. : language to 
 the effect that an amendment of an article must relate to 
 the subject-matter of that article (supposedly the mere 
 heading thereof) and must not affect or repeal the pro- 
 visions of other articles. 
 
14 
 
 So far as the possibility of "writing an entire new 
 constitution under the guise of one article," etc., is con- 
 cerned, it may be observed that the delegates no^ doubt 
 supposed that in making amendments some regard tO' ar- 
 ticles and arrangement thereof would be observed. By 
 dividing the constitutioii into "articles" in which one or 
 more general subjects were treated, and requiring that 
 each amendment or set of amendments passed at each 
 session should be placed under one article, and hence that 
 one article at a time be changed, the convention thus 
 placed an embargo upon making inconsiderate amend- 
 ments. For allowing that there could he adopted at one 
 time a number of amendments variant in character and 
 wide in scope, yet if this practice were recklessly indulged 
 it would cause the constitution ultimately to gradually 
 become a substantially different document in form or to 
 display considerable patchwork. This was something 
 which would naturally be avoided, and hence changes in 
 the principal arrangement of the constitution, except 
 where necessary or vital, were thus discouraged or dis- 
 countenanced. 
 
 Thus, therefore, a definite object or function is sub- 
 served by the amendment provision if we give it simply 
 all its expressed meaning, and abstain from "inference." 
 
 Secondly, if such provision did not operate to prevent 
 the people from "writing an entire nev/ constitution under 
 the guise of one article" it is not perceived that great 
 damage would be done. The other articles or sections 
 thus laid aside and repealed would of course be omitted 
 from the published constitutions thereafter with no great- 
 er inconvenience than what has been experienced in the 
 
 past by the action of legislatures and with no more nov- 
 elty than that exhibited in a fashion in vogue for centu- 
 
ries. Many and varied existing statutes upon "crimes," 
 "misdemeanors," "forfeitures," etc., have been embraced 
 in one statute as a "criminal code." In various states 
 complete revisions of statutes have been made reducing 
 them in volume as well as the number of chapters, and 
 causing a gradual change in the arrangement of the stat- 
 utes as published. 
 
 Thirdly, the people responsible for the alleged incon- 
 venience, if any arose from writing an entire new consti- 
 tution as one article, would be the people affected thereby. 
 
 Fourthly, if by giving the provision all its expressed 
 meaning and no other it failed of any definite purpose, or 
 of prohibiting to any extent any certain action, there is 
 on this account no warrant to indulge in inferences. 
 
 Instances are common where statutes have been held 
 to be mere declarations of what the law had been in fact 
 before they were passed, or what it would be without 
 them, or where from some defects in their drafts or from 
 the provisions of other statutes, their effect has been 
 void or valueless. 
 
 No doubt occasionally for kindred reasons planks in 
 constitutions have been found to be equally valueless. 
 
 There is, therefore, no novelty in experience to be 
 avoided in this case which in and of itself would warrant 
 such a resort to "inference." 
 
 Fifthly, the object thus sought to be subserved, viz. : 
 avoiding a provision in the constitution which fails of 
 effect is an infinitely less object than the one which would 
 be destroyed by its fulfillment, that is to say. avoiding 
 the alternative of either preventing the orderly develop- 
 ment of the state, or putting it to the unnatural and ex- 
 travagant crucial expedient of having its whole organism 
 and polity hacked over in convention. 
 
i6 
 
 In the Wilson case, supra, the amendment construed 
 was Section 31 of Article IV. 
 
 The new matter in said section which was adopted in 
 1878 was to the effect that ''the General Assembly may 
 provide for the organization of drainage districts and 
 vest the corporate authorities thereof with power to con- 
 struct levees, drains and ditches and keep in repair all 
 drains, ditches and levees heretofore constructed under 
 the laws of this state by special assessments upon prop- 
 erty specially benefited thereby." 
 
 Section 9 of Article IX had provided that the General 
 Assembly may vest the corporate authorities of cities, 
 towns and villages with power to make local improve- 
 ments by special assessment," etc. The Supreme Court 
 had ruled that this provision taken in connection with 
 other language in the section was a limitation upon the 
 power of the Assembly and prohibited it from vesting 
 any other authorities with the power to levy special 
 assessment, e. g., "drainage district" authorities. 
 
 Therefore said amendment placed under Article IV 
 directly amended Section 9 of Article IX, by removing 
 the ban on drainage district special assessments. 
 
 Yet it was held valid. Justice Scholfield, who' wrote 
 the opinion, did not disting'uish between "direct" and "in- 
 cidental" amendment, however. 
 
 He held that of course the Legislature had always 
 had the power to create drainage districts or any other 
 kind of municipality it chose to, and that hence the pro- 
 vision of allowing the creation of drainage districts was 
 merely a dry declaration of what it could have done in 
 any event. The provision for the grant of the power of 
 special assessment to drainage boards was the main and 
 
17 
 
 principal portion of the amendment. There wa? cer- 
 tainly nothing "incidental" about it. 
 
 This italicized distinction between main and "inciden- 
 tal" amendment should therefore have been tested more 
 before beinc: launched upon the public. 
 
 And there seems to be less of "smugglinir" and "palpa- 
 ble trickery" in simply giving the English in the section 
 in question its plain import, than in entangling the people 
 with a vcrv net of prohibitions, which might strangle 
 their municipal life. 
 
 What the five gentlemen are each here driving at in 
 their said individual opinion is no more or less than an 
 attempt to distinguish between express and implied re- 
 peal. 
 
 "Amend" is "to make a change or changes in the form 
 of. as a bill or motion, or a constitution/' (Century 
 Dictionary.) 
 
 Thus if we amend an act we change- the form of it, 
 the language of it. In doing this we can expressly re- 
 peal the provisions of another act or a part of them. Or 
 if our language is inconsistent with any such provisions 
 the former will be to the extent of such conflict repealed. 
 This latter is a case of repeal by implication. 
 
 Rut in changing the form of one act. we can not there- 
 by change the form of another act any more than by the 
 act of rolling one marble wc can be said to be rolling 
 two. 
 
 The word "amend" is used sometimes in the sense of 
 repeal or a change in substance. And so used it would 
 be proper to say there were two kinds, "express" and 
 "implied." 
 
i8 
 
 Probably our friends meant this; but even allowing 
 them these two^ (as it is thought) more accurate terms, 
 their conclusions stand out opposed to precedent and 
 practice and barren of logical warrant. 
 
 It is not necessary, however, as said above, to nullify 
 the amendatory provision in question by the conclusion 
 we have announced. 
 
 It can be given effect by a simple observance of the re- 
 quirement that all amendments submitted at one session 
 be placed under one article, i. e., amend or change in 
 form but one article. 
 
 That this direction would be observed, and that at the 
 same time the arrangement of the instrument in respect 
 to subject-matter would not be unnecessarily disturbed 
 and involved beyond reasonable bounds, the said conven- 
 tion had to and no doubt did trust the people to see to. 
 
 It may well be that the convention supposed it had 
 made such a simple (?) instrument that it would be 
 learned ''by heart" by every judge, lawyer, citizen and 
 high school graduate; and that amendments thereio 
 could easily be kept track of and the instrument thus 
 easily preserved in the public memory if this rule of 
 changing one article at a time were observed. 
 
 At all events their attempt at a limitation in respect to 
 amendments resulted in a mere matter of form or con- 
 venience. 
 
 When it is recollected that the constitution consists of 
 nearly tzvo hundred sections, and some of these are of 
 complex subject-matter, it was quite natural that some at- 
 tempt at keeping it from becoming in future much more 
 complex in form was thought of. 
 
19 
 
 The mainspring of doubt in the niinrls of our brethren 
 in this matter is not hard to trace. 
 
 It is assumed that some Hmitation was in fact intended 
 by the framers of our constitution. 
 
 Said doubt has its origin in a rehictance to do what 
 might seem hke an attempt to help out a situation by 
 ignoring legal requirements. The idea is, that while the 
 delegates in convention may possibly have said some- 
 thing which meant nothing, yet they certainly meant to 
 say something w'hich meant something, and hence their 
 wishes should be respected and venerated. 
 
 The refreshing innocence in this willingness to bow to 
 the inevitable and rather than even lightly disappoint a 
 few ancestral citizens, to pass under the rod of progress- 
 prohibited-except-at-the-snail's-pace, is not to be despised. 
 The community needs more of it. In fact, it is suffering 
 from a dearth of it. 
 
 But as lawyers we cannot escape the responsibility of 
 finding out what legal clauses mean, and this through 
 the consideration of both words and subject-matter. 
 
 When we consider clauses in the constitution we must 
 not forget the nature of a constitution or the danger of 
 greatly curtailing power to change it. 
 
 The fact that a certain construction may lead us to ruin 
 or danger of ruin, is a great factor in 1 elj)ing us to select 
 a construction where words :.re vague, or, as in this case, 
 in keeping us from extending language beyond its ex- 
 pressed import, or from "construing into" the constitu- 
 tion words which are not there. 
 
 And between recognizing that our friends of a former 
 generation may have made one mistake and attributing 
 to them an intent to work us dire evil, we choose the 
 former with alacrity. 
 
20 
 
 That Illinois should flounder forever in impotent at- 
 tempts to extricate herself from a tightening net of in- 
 hibitions against progress, or to be released therefrom 
 only upon condition that she bring all her cardinal forms 
 and principles of government into actual or technical 
 chaos and prove to herself her ability to re-extract the 
 good ones while taking grave chances in reaching out for 
 something new, presents an alternative which cannot be 
 lightly treated, or from which we cannot run away. If 
 we approach this threatening monster courageously we 
 will find it to be only a retreating apparition. 
 
 To always allow vaguely worded clauses to have a 
 definite meaning is to assert that language is unnecessary 
 to express laws and regulations, or that a reviewing body 
 can always guess at unexpressed meaning. (Vague or 
 meaningless terms would thus be placed upon a par with 
 or above clearly expressed ones.) 
 
 If we had the power to do this we could dispense with 
 courts and lawyers ; but to assume it would be to attempt 
 to jump beyond human limitations or environment. 
 
 If, therefore, an attempt had been made by the use of 
 language to add the requirements numbered 2 and 3 above 
 or limitations, and the same had not been clearly ex- 
 pressed, the contention is that it would be nugatory un- 
 aer a strict construction to which it would necessarily be 
 subject. 
 
 But in this instance our friends have gone entirely be- 
 yond the medium of language to whisper what was in the 
 minds of the individual lawmakers of a third of a century 
 ago! 
 
 If, therefore, the constitution contained the same limi- 
 tation upon amendments to the instrument itself as the 
 ones which it fastens upon the legislative in the passage 
 of bills it would be very narrow in application. We have 
 
21 
 
 little hesitancy in saying that if it were found to obstruct 
 the orderly development of the state and severely dwarf 
 its growth, or to draw heavily upon the public wealth, 
 health, prosperity or general good, it would be held void 
 and ineffective, or that it was not applicable to such extra- 
 ordinary case; and that a measure which it was seen 
 would relieve the public ills would be lifted in the eyes of 
 any competent court to the plane of a police law and be 
 sustained, in spite of any letter conflict between it and 
 such provisions. 
 
 Great crises justifv heroic action. Grave sub- 
 jects demand wide discretion in handling them. Solemn 
 instruments demand broad views of their subject-matter. 
 When the choice of instruments is denied the only surgeon 
 who can cure a fatal malady, he must exercise a full dis- 
 cretion in using that one which is given him. In exe- 
 :uting an order to enter all buildings one must except 
 diose which are found to be simply coverings to fathom- 
 less pits. 
 
 All this is not ''evasion" or "subterfuge" or ''palpable 
 irickery'' or "smuggling," etc. It simply proves that 
 life has its responsibilities, which can not be escaped; and 
 that either to "infer" embargoes upon progress or to 
 blindly deny languag:e any but the one meaning when 
 applied to subject-matters as variant as the plants of the 
 earth is possibly to mar the wisest plans for man's ad- 
 vancement or for his redemption from misery. 
 
 This is what Gibson, the ablest of Pennsylvania judges, 
 meant when he said: "A constitution is not to receive a 
 technical construction like a common law instrument or 
 statute. * * * It is to be interpreted to carry out 
 the great principles of goven.ment. ""♦ ■'> defeat them." 
 
 The subject-matter of a constituiiun, as said !>cfore. 
 is variant. Each clause must be considered with refer- 
 
22 
 
 ence to its subject-matter and the department ci govern- 
 ment to which it relates. That is, the constitution is to 
 be regarded as a grant to the courts, but a limitation up- 
 on the legislature. This particular section was expressly 
 held to be a limitation in the Wilson case, and this has 
 never been open to serious question. 
 
 In construing a particular clause of a constitution 
 which is in doubt, the debates in convention are some- 
 times used by the courts to aid in ascertaining what 
 was intended. 
 
 This practice, however, is to be cautiously followed 
 and is very narrow in application. 
 
 In case a term used be vague or its exact significance 
 is not known to the court, or it is one of particularly 
 local meaning, it would seem natural and perhaps neces- 
 sary to look to the debates to ascertain that it had an ac- 
 cepted meaning, and what that meaning was. 
 
 In a test, however, of the mere extent or application of 
 a provision the terms of which are clear and of universal 
 significance, and which could be given some effect without 
 resort to such means, it would be unsafe to rely upon 
 the expressions of the members who might have chosen 
 to speak upon the subject. In construing a mere pro- 
 vision for a method of procedure such course would be 
 particularly treacherous. Some members might have 
 thought the limitations stringent and others might have 
 thought them liberal or light. On this there might be a 
 wide difference of opinion. 
 
 The speaking members are not necessarily the safer 
 judges. And many a vote ''aye" might have been 
 prompted by the individual's opinion that after all the 
 clause or section proposed would not have the effect its 
 proponents supposed that it would. 
 
-^3 
 
 Resort, therefore, to constitutional debates should be 
 an exceedingly cautious practice, and is not applicable to 
 a case of this kind. 
 
 We have, however, examined the debates of the con- 
 vention of 1870 and find scarcely one reference to this 
 amendment provision. 
 
 It seems to have been borrowed from the constitution 
 of 1848, and it has never been construed by the Supreme 
 Court, no test case having arisen. 
 
 Nor is this a case where other "extrinsic aids" can be 
 resorted to. There are no vague terms, etc., to be inter- 
 preted. The provision means just v/hat it says and no 
 more. 
 
 Extrinsic aids, such as the object to be attained, the 
 mischief to be remedied, cotemporaneous history, the cir- 
 cumstances attending the formation of the constitution, 
 the convention debates, etc., "can be resorted to otily 
 where doubt exists which it is impossible to solve from an 
 inspection of the instrument itself/' or where the "text 
 is obscure or ambiguous." But "they are powerless to 
 vary the terms of the constitution." 
 
 Am. & Eng. Ency. Law, 2d Ed.. Vol. 6. pp. 929. 
 930, and cases cited. 
 
24 
 
 II. 
 
 Even if the rule of " germaneness " obtained, the draft 
 of amendment annexed comes well within it, and 
 would be valid. 
 
 The question occurs here: Apart from all questions 
 of statutory limitations as to ''one subject," etc., did not 
 the convention intend that such should be the test as to 
 the validity of amendments? Did it not in limiting 
 amendments to one article mean the subject of that article 
 and not merely the form of it. 
 
 The first answer which arises in answer to this is an- 
 other question, viz. : If it meant it, why did it not say it? 
 
 And this becomes infinitely more important when we 
 are applying a strict construction, which must never be 
 forgotten for a moment. 
 
 The word "article" might as well be ''division" or 
 "paragraph." It is itself a form. To change an article 
 of the constitution is to amend a thing of form. To 
 amend is "to change the form of." We have therefore 
 nothing left but form. The form or heading is as dis- 
 tinct from the subject as a fence from the cattle in the 
 field or from the patch of earth which it encloses. 
 
 A direction that the fences around one field only can 
 be changed at a time does not mean that no new ground 
 can be taken in, or that soil of a different character must 
 be excluded. 
 
 But let us for the sake of argument assume that the 
 subject-matter of our amendment must be "germane" 
 to the subject of the article, then the question comes up: 
 Does "subject" as here used mean only the first heading 
 
25 
 
 of the article, or does it mean any of the varied and sub- 
 divided subjects in each section or each sentence thereof? 
 If it means the latter, it is easy to see that the constituticjn 
 may be said to be divided into as many subjects as there 
 are s<.ntences. 
 
 I>ut any one who attempts to look upon the consti- 
 tution as composed of separate items or as a collection 
 of separate objects as he would view a bundle of fagots, 
 will not hold his conception long. Subjects if looked at 
 long enough seem to fade into each other, like the waves 
 of the sea. For one instant they seem distinct, 
 but in the next they have disappeared. In covering the 
 field of general public welfare the constitution reveals 
 divisions like waves upon the sea; as something is put 
 into the constitution and drawn from it, it in a measure 
 unsettles parts other than the sections actually changed. 
 To say that you shall not disturb one wave by drawing 
 from another is to say that you shall not touch the con- 
 stitution at all. 
 
 But we will not have to meet the question of whether 
 or not the supposed rule of germaneness is to be tested by 
 the "heading" subject or by the minor ones specified in 
 particular. For we are dealing with a county; and 
 "counties" is the heading of the article under which this 
 amendment is placed. And it cannot be said that 
 Cook County cannot be validly treated under that head- 
 ing, because it has already been so treated. Section 7 
 of such article provides how the **afifairs of Cook County" 
 shall be managed. Section 9 creates special offices for 
 Cook County and makes special provisions applicable 
 thereto. Hence "Cook County affairs" is germane to the 
 article on "Counties." because in treating of such affairs 
 we are treating of a county; secondly, because the consti- 
 
26 
 
 tution-makers themselves have set the example in treat- 
 ing them as such; and, thirdly, it is germane to one of 
 the specific subjects in said article, because — well, be- 
 cause such is one of its subjects. 
 
 The only question left, therefore, is : Is this amend- 
 ment and its specific provisions germane to "the affairs 
 of Cook County?" 
 
 A division of Cook County and a consolidation of a 
 part of Cook County v^^ith cities and other municipalities 
 in it is the primary object of this amendment. There is 
 nO' special article in the constitution upon "cities." If 
 
 it is proposed to consolidate the county with the city 
 (wholly or partly), it is just as appropriate to put the 
 amendment under counties as it would be to put it under 
 "cities," if there zi^as a special article thus labeled. Any- 
 thing that is fairly germane to a scheme of consolidation 
 or a division of the county could be as appropriately 
 placed under counties as under any other article — it 
 would still be germane to the subject treated. 
 
 The provisions for submitting the consolidation 
 scheme to a vote, the directions as to providing county 
 government in the remaining territory, and the provision 
 for an increase of debt of the City of Chicago (in order 
 to correspond with the increased functions thrown upon 
 said city by the adoption of the scheme) are all absolutely 
 germane; and this without question. 
 
 The provision for abolishing justices of the peace and 
 constables in said city is likewise so, and for this reason : 
 The jurisdiction of justices and constables now extends 
 throughout the county, namely, over both a city and 
 country district. If the county were divided it would ex- 
 tend only over a city district. Every one concedes that 
 
27 
 
 this petty judicial system is not well adapted to such 
 a district, that is, every one advocating their abolishment — 
 and this is a legislative question which the courts cannot 
 inquire into here. Every one likewise concedes that it is 
 well adapted to a country district. There might be doubt 
 as to whether or not you would abolish justices of the 
 peace when their jurisdiction extended over a ''fit" dis- 
 trict and an ''unfit" one. but no question about it when 
 it would simply cover the latter. 
 
 The same is true as to the provision in respect to the 
 districts where selling liquor is prohibited. The consti- 
 tution-makers might validly provide, in their wisdom, 
 either that in the consolidated city there should be no 
 liquor-selling or that it should not extend into the dis- 
 tricts at present free from it. 
 
 But there is still another conclusive reason why the 
 various features of this amendment are all germane to 
 the subject in hand, viz. : This amendment covers a terri- 
 tory, viz. : Cook County. No matter whether it were 
 headed or labeled "Provisions for the local government 
 of the territory now comprised within Cook County," or 
 "Cook County affairs," or "Cook County," there is 
 scarcely anything that is local to that territory or any 
 part of it. that could not be put therein; or anything that 
 could be made local or special to it. 
 
 In j)roviding for annexation or consolidation, it is 
 proper enough to except in the act certain functions or 
 territory which would otherwise be included. It is just 
 as a|)propriate to reserve liquor free districts as to pro- 
 vide special limitations as to the character of the build- 
 ings in annexing a populated district to a city. An act 
 of the legislature annexing Hyde Park to Chicago and 
 providing that certain building regulations of the city 
 
28 
 
 should not be in force in the annexed district, or that 
 the city election law should not be used therein, might 
 be held bad as special legislation, etc., but never on ac- 
 count of having two subjects, or because the exceptions 
 were not germane to the act. As well say that an act 
 granting a forty-acre tract to be appurtenant to the ex- 
 ecutive mansion, excepting that four acres thereof were 
 to be used for temporary hospital purposes, was invalid 
 for this reason. 
 
 Supposing, after the providing for the bill of rights 
 and the frame of government and state officers and gen- 
 eral state-wide interests, etc., the constitution had made 
 districts throughout the state for all local government, 
 as they did in several instances for judges, etc. In such 
 case anything relating to courts, clerks, sheriffs, special 
 assessment and finances, etc., peculiar to each district 
 could appropriately and ''germanely" be placed under 
 the article or section relating to such district. 
 
 The suggestion, however, comes up that if you do this 
 by amendment, you might be radically repealing or clip- 
 ping down provisions of other articles. But we are not 
 concerned with this, for we have already shown that we 
 can thus repeal, expressly or impliedly, and it is imma- 
 terial whether we repeal much or little. 
 
 Hence, the conclusion is, that even under the rule of 
 "germaneness," ''Cook County affairs" has been specially 
 made by the constitution, or Cook County has been spe- 
 cially singled out by the constitution, as a district of its 
 oimi which can be separately treated. And that being so, 
 there is no limit to what may be validly put in the con- 
 stitution so long as its operation is confined to that county 
 or any of its parts. 
 
 If this were a statute, the provision in regard to non- 
 
29 
 
 liqiior-selling districts or a similar provision could val- 
 idly be placed in the article on "cities, villages and 
 towns," and in a section providing for "change of boun- 
 daries," or "consolidation of cities." etc. ; and there is no 
 question but that the courts would construe it as a valid 
 part of an act so labeled. 
 
 Upon this rule of germaneness, even as applied to 
 statutes, the courts give a very wide and liberal inter- 
 pretation. To do otherwise would dimply be narrowing 
 the legislative field to a succession of channels and crev- 
 ices in which it could flounder around and do little or no 
 good. To place it in the constitution and then narrow 
 it would be a definite challenge to the state to grow ; but 
 in the grozving do not change. * 
 
 Nor can it be said that even though this limitation 
 upon amendments may greatly hamper the people in 
 making constitutional changes, yet the convention- 
 framers provided for a convention which could give all 
 relief wanted in any case, and hence intended the limi- 
 tation to be narrow. 
 
 But the fact that these men provided for both amend- 
 ments and convention does not change the nature of 
 either, or cause the poiver to make amendments to be 
 less vital; or make the convention a less radical or cru- 
 cical expedient (or, as in the case of a "going" state, a 
 less unnatural one). 
 
 This suppo.sed rule of germaneness obtains nowhere 
 else than in such states as have a similar provision to ours 
 in the constitution. And all such express provisions ap- 
 ply to statutes only. Had such a limitation on statute- 
 making never been inserted in our constitution, no one 
 would dream of raising it here- It is the habit of testing 
 statutes by them which we carry with us for the time 
 
30 
 
 being when we approach a study of this plank in the 
 constitution. 
 
 We must rid ourselves of this and see that the field for 
 constitutional changes is naturally as broad as it ever 
 was ; that to attempt to contract it in the manner claimed 
 would be a serious matter. That any attempt at doing 
 so must be strictly, very strictly^ construed. And it is 
 hard to see how under an ordinarily strict construction 
 we can drag this modern ?nd unexpressed rule into 
 service. 
 
 It is at the vital points that language is usually uncer- 
 tain. But we must not in a laudible desire to attribute 
 a purpose to language, hold to the language and forget 
 the vitals. The convention-makers probably never 
 studied carefully to see how far limitations upon amend- 
 ments might reach. If they had, they probably would 
 never have attempted anything so strict. However that 
 may be, we will give force to what they expressed and 
 eliminate the rest. 
 
in. 
 
 The limitation as to amoiidmoiits In question here do 
 not apply to the portions of the const itudon other 
 than the articles; and do not prohibit addiiiy: new 
 articles to said instrunieni. 
 
 1. W'c have above referred to the "separate sect'ons** 
 of the constitution which are set forth in the body of the 
 instrument, but which are not part or parcel of any 'arti- 
 cle" therein. They are, however, as much a part of the 
 constitution as any of its articles. Said sections were 
 originally three in number, one relating to the Illinois 
 Central Railroad; another to prohibition upon subscrip- 
 tions by municipalities to railroads and other private cor- 
 porations; and the last, to the Illinois and Michigan 
 Canal. 
 
 A fourth in respect to "convict labor" was proposed 
 by amendment and adopted by the people in 1886. 
 Inhere is no prohibition in the article on "Amendment" 
 against adding "separate sections" without numl)er to 
 these four; and the subject-matter of any added sections 
 might be as varied and incongruous as that of the four 
 already in the instrument. 
 
 A "separate section" or a numl)cr of them in reference 
 to a new county to be called the "County of Chicagt^" and 
 containing whatever was pertinent to municipal affairs 
 therein to be added bv the amendment method could not 
 be called unconstitutional. There is nothing which can 
 be pointed to to prove it so. 
 
 2. So too as to the "Schedule" of the constitution. 
 The ordinary function of a schedule to a constitution is to 
 
 I 
 
32 
 
 make provision for its taking effect a2id to save rights 
 from lapsing and tO' prevent inconvenience, etc., during 
 transition from the old to the new order of things. 
 
 Yet it has frequently been used also as a sort of scoop 
 to gather up at the pre-adjournment session a few matters 
 of vital import forgotten bv the convention while framing 
 up the main body of the instrument. Jameson after re- 
 marking (Constitutional Conventions, p. 96) that such 
 vital provisions have no proper place in the schedule, says : 
 "It is more perhaps a sense of logical completeness and 
 or'der than substantial propriety which is offended by such 
 provisions." (There is here not even the suggestion of 
 invalidity.) *'But if a schedule is a proper sub- 
 division of a constitution it should be, not in the nature of 
 a labor-saving postscript, made at the expense of clear- 
 ness and finish, but of an appendix, in which to gather 
 provisions of a temporary and miscellaneous character, 
 related to the instrument in the main only as subservient 
 to its general objects." 
 
 Now the schedule of our present constitution has in it 
 
 this provision : 
 
 "Sec. 24. Nothing contained in this constitution 
 shall be so- construed as to deprive the General As- 
 sembly of power to authorize the City of Quincy to 
 create any indebtedness for railroad or municipal 
 purposes, for which the people of said city shall have 
 voted, and tO' which they shall have given, by such 
 vote, their assent, prior tO' the 13th day of December, 
 A. D. 1869. Provided, that no such indebtedness so 
 created, shall in any part thereof be paid by the state, 
 or from any state revenue, tax or fund, but the same 
 shall be paid, if at all, by the said City of Quincy 
 alone, and by taxes to be levied upon the taxable 
 property thereof. And, provided, further, that the 
 General Assembly shall have no power in the prem- 
 ises that it could not exercise under the present con- 
 stitution of this state." 
 
I 
 
 , 
 
 33 
 
 This provision is as much a pan of the constitution as 
 any one of the fourteen articles. It could, as well as any 
 
 one of such articles, of course he amended. 
 
 Suppose a provision relating^ t(; a special charter 
 for the City of Quincy were framed, voted on and 
 adopted, which purported in form to amend this section, 
 changing a part of it and adding much to it. Would any 
 court pronounce it invalid? 
 
 Or suppose an entire new section be added to such 
 schedule, in reference to the ''City of Chicago" — it would 
 be as appropriate as to place the affairs of Chicago in the 
 schedule as those of Ouincy — why would it not be prop- 
 erly and validly a part of the constitution? 
 
 If it conflicted with other sections the latter to the ex- 
 tent of such conflict would l>e repealed. 
 
 The rule here, as in statute law, is that later provisions 
 (that is later adopted provisions) prevail over and repeal 
 earlier ones inconsistent therewith. 
 
 6 Am. & Eng. Ency., 2d Ed., Vol. 6, p. 927. 
 
 3. Or suppose, as was suggested by a late editorial in 
 the "Chicago Evening Journal." that it was thought l)est 
 to add a new and complete article to the constitution in 
 reference to ''Chicago." What warrant would therr N- 
 for a court declaring it invalid? 
 
 If permissible to add new articles to the constitu- 
 tion (and our friends have nowhere pointed out an in- 
 hibition against it), there is no limit as to what shall be 
 inserted therein, whether it is strictly new matter, as. for 
 instance, an article on "Labor and Capital," or in addi- 
 tion as many subjects as might l>e desired, and as variant 
 as the contents of the "Bill oi Rights." the ''Separate Sec- 
 tions" or the "Schedule." 
 
34 
 
 Conclusions. 
 
 Our conclusions, given out in thorough confidence, 
 are: 
 
 1. It is clear and settled beyond controversy that the 
 provision ts to amending one article at a time is a limita- 
 tion upon the power of the General Assembly; and that 
 all such provisions are to be construed strictly. This 
 provision is even more than such a mere limitation, viz. : 
 a limitation upon the making of limitations by the As- 
 sembly and a curtailing of the power of the people over 
 themselves. There is not the slightest warrant, there- 
 fore, for extending by construction the provision beyond 
 its plain language. 
 
 2. The only expressed limitation upon amendments 
 which may be proposed at one session of the Assembly 
 is that they shall purport to amend {or ''change in 
 form") but one article. 
 
 3. There being no expressed requirement that all 
 such amendments shall relate to but one subject (as in the 
 case of statutes) such amendments may be variant in 
 subject-matter if the Assembly shall choose to make them 
 so. 
 
 4. Nor can it be said that by implication or inference 
 it was intended that amendments to one article should 
 be germane to the "subject" of that article; for 
 
 1st. There is no declaration in the constitution estab- 
 lishing a given "subject" to each or any article. 
 
 2nd. Nor is there any uniform plan or arrangement 
 extending throughout the 14 articles from which one dis- 
 tinct "subject" to each article is to be inferred; for 
 
 a. The "headings" to various articles are only 
 
35 
 
 labels for convenience; and in some articles there arc 
 a number of them of equal prominence in siz2 of type, 
 
 etc. 
 
 \ b. Some of the articles are quite variant in subject- 
 
 I matter — have several ''subjects'* — and some of these 
 
 arc not distinguishable from subjects in other articles. 
 
 5. Even if there were such a requirement as to ''sub- 
 ject" and "germaneness," etc., yet there is no prohibition 
 against an amendment to one article amending any other 
 article or its provisions. (Such a one would be proba- 
 bly too stringent to be sustained by the courts if it existed 
 in form.) To "imply" or "infer" the latter would be 
 causing constitutional changes with no such expressed 
 prohibition to be far more narrow in scope than statutes 
 with the two expressed prohibitions referred to ab<^n'e. 
 
 6. To "imply" or "infer" broader limitations than 
 the ones expressed in the constitution, might lead (we 
 might even say zcill lead) to disastrous or distressful re- 
 sults, the intention to foster which is not to be attributed 
 to the framers of the constitution. 
 
 7. The amendment heretofore proposed by the Civic 
 Federation is. however, "germane" to the subject "Coun- 
 ties ' the heading of Article X under which it is placed; 
 and it is also germane to one or more of the si>ecific sub- 
 jects treated in said article, being in fact one of them, 
 viz., "Cook County affairs." 
 
 8. Such an amendment could l>c added to the "sepa- 
 rate sections" of the constitution with no danger of its 
 being held void ; or 
 
 9. It could l^e inserted in the ''Schedule" with equal 
 safety (although it would be oddly placed in such case) ; 
 or 
 
 10. It could be as well embraced in a separate "arti- 
 cle." 
 
3^ 
 
 PART IT. 
 
 As to the vital nature of the power of amending State 
 Constitutions; and suggestions showing why limita- 
 tions thereon should be subject to strict construction. 
 
 It is thought that the above and foregoing suggestions 
 are amply sufficient to support of the conclusions 
 reached. But the following is added by way of con- 
 firmation and added emphasis. 
 
 It was asked in the "Journal" editorial above referred 
 to and has often been asked, Has one generation the 
 power to bind another in this manner, i. e., by limiting 
 the power to change the constitution ? 
 
 In one sense, no. 
 
 The state exists. With no constitution whatsoever it 
 would still exist. But it could only continue to exist un- 
 der some organization which would be tacitly accepted 
 by the people, or forced by sheer military power. As the 
 state has existed now for over three-quarters of a cen- 
 tury in such case it would no doubt be held that by force 
 of custom alone it was radically constituted by and di- 
 vided into the three chief departments, each with the 
 powers long attributed to and exercised by it. 
 
 So, too, the bill of rights and all fundamental rights 
 of citizens as enjoyed by them for centuries would no 
 doubt be upheld by common consent and enforced by our 
 courts as imbedded in our state polity and as belonging 
 to citizenship itself. 
 
 Mr. James Bryce, in his work, "American Com- 
 monwealth," says (p. 464) : 
 
 jn' 
 
37 
 
 "One could well imagine the several state governments 
 working without fundamental instruments to control 
 them. Each American state might now, if it so pleased, 
 conduct its own business and govern its citizens as a com- 
 monwealth at common law, with a sovereign legislature 
 whose statutes formed the highest expression of popular 
 will. It might retain the separation from the legislature 
 of the executive governors elected by the people, and ex- 
 ercising his veto on their behalf, and yet dispense alto- 
 gether with a rigid fundamental constitution. This, how- 
 ever, no American state does or has ever done, or is 
 likely to do." 
 
 Xo matter how vital any proposed change might be 
 the people themselves should have the power to make 
 it when they thought it advisable. 
 
 It will be said that the amendment provision under 
 consideration above does not purport to limit the power 
 of the people to make any change whatsoever, but only 
 provides a method therefor. 
 
 As a method pure and simple there is no objection to 
 it. lUit when there is, as here, a limitation upon the 
 actual use of the method, this may amount to a limita- 
 tion of the power itself, which possibly could not be tol- 
 erated under come circumstances without danger to the 
 state. 
 
 The requirement that amendments shall be proposed by 
 the Legislature and voted upon by the people suggests 
 a natural and proper method. 
 
 Anticii)ating that it might never be necessary to call a 
 convention (and wisely as we think) a method was pro- 
 vided for amendment. 
 
 This was proper, not as necessarily depriving the peo- 
 ple in their sovereign capacity of the right to adopt con- 
 
38 
 
 stitutional provisions in any other manner in any case or 
 in any exigency^ bui: as directing and furnishing a 
 method which could be pursued without affecting or en- 
 dangering the peace and tranquillity of the state while 
 the vital subject w^as under treatment or until the people 
 had formally expressed themselves upon it, and which 
 method should be pursued where it was practicable. 
 
 Some will say that the constitution framers might nat- 
 urally have seen that by their limitation upon amend- 
 ments such progress of making changes thereto would be 
 very slow, but that they deliberately intended it that way, 
 and that if the way were not fast enough to suit the 
 changing conditions of the people then it was intended 
 to drive them to resort to a ''convention. '^ 
 
 But conceding the power of one convention to bind 
 the people to such methods or to drive them to another 
 convention this suggestion does not look tenable. 
 
 For it is hardly to be presumed that these men in- 
 tended that periodically all the organic and fundamental 
 law of the state should be wiped out or dumped into the 
 hotchpotch of debate to be again agreed upon, voted upon 
 and re-declared. 
 
 We cannot construe the said provision without recog- 
 nizing the nature of the instrument or subject-matter to 
 which it relates. 
 
 If the proposed construction of an amendatory pro- 
 vision such as the one we have above treated would lead 
 or might lead in and of itself to harmful results and state- 
 wide disaster, or the uprooting of the vital principles of 
 government and its organic law, either one or the other 
 is a conclusive argument against it — especially where 
 every word can be given effect and such a result avoided 
 by another construction. 
 
39 
 
 1 he suggestion that "one generation should not be al- 
 lowed to bind another" should, however, be explained 
 and guarded in application. Nothing should be done by 
 one generation which should bind a succeeding genera- 
 tion against its protest. The succeeding generation is 
 supposedly as fit to judge all vital matters which affect 
 it as the preceding one; and in fact if mankind is really 
 progressing toward the better it should be more fit. His- 
 tory has its value and in considering the making of vital 
 changes it should be paid venerable tribute and the expe- 
 rience of prior generations should be given great weight. 
 But such later generations have no inherent right or con- 
 trol over succeeding generations or any one of them. 
 
 But it does not follow that because this is so (that be- 
 cause each generation of a state should have control over 
 its constitution) that the way is open at any time for a 
 change therein in any manner whatsoever. 
 
 It can well be said that it is not to the interest 
 of one generation to be born into a state of technical 
 or actual anarchy in regard to its constitution or laws. 
 The duty and the privilege of the prior generation 
 to transmit to the succeeding one a stable and peaceful 
 state under which the latter may come upon the scene of 
 life is clear. And this l>eing so, reasonable metluxls. 
 forms and limitations which are prescri!)ed by one genera- 
 tion of citizens of a state within and according to which 
 the fundamental regulations or laws shall be changed arc 
 proper and necessary safeguards of **p<^*'^<^c ^"'^ tranquil- 
 lity." The constituted k)dies in authority shoultl there- 
 fore observe them. 
 
 If. therefore, a constitution of a state dcli!>cratcly 
 planned and regularly accepted provides that there .«ihall 
 be no amendment thereto, or change therein, except in a 
 
40 
 
 certain method and within reasonable limitations, such 
 forms and methods should be observed, and that depart- 
 ment of state whose constituted function is tO' see that 
 laws are followed should have the right to enforce 
 obedience tO' such methods, or to declare departures there- 
 from null and void. 
 
 But it must not be forgotten that such limitations 
 should be strictly construed. And where they apparently 
 conflict with the orderly development of the state, and bear 
 heavily on the public welfare, and prevent progress, and 
 invite anarchy or chaos, then they should be construed 
 either as being null and void as applied to the issue then 
 presented, or the latter should be treated as a police 
 measure, a measure of necessity, and outside and beyond 
 the scope of such provisions. In this way peace and the 
 stability of public affairs may be preserved. The very 
 object of such provisions would be thwarted in pursuing 
 another course. 
 
 The necessity of an elastic construction of constitu- 
 tional provisions is thus apparent. The professed object 
 underlying such regulations, and which call them into 
 existence, might be furthered in one case and with one 
 construction or application, while by the same in another 
 it would be thwarted and rendered null. 
 
 It may be said, however, that it does not follow that 
 the strictest adherence to amendatory provisions, even if 
 these were slow and burdensome methods, would drive 
 the public to such state of chaos or anarchy, technical or 
 real, but that it would only force us to have a constitu- 
 tional convention. 
 
 Is the constitutional convention the preordained style 
 of body or form of expression through which any eenera- 
 tion of people are bound to express assent to or dissent 
 
41 
 
 from clianges in their organic law or frame of govern- 
 ment? If one generation cannot tie the hands of a suc- 
 ceeding one or put limitations uix>n their power to change 
 their fundamental law, has it the power to decree once 
 and forever that a certain method through which this can 
 be done shall be the only one? Has it the power to say 
 that assent by the electors of a commonwealth to a pro- 
 vision or any number of them can only be given after such 
 provisions shall be framed and submitted to them by a 
 certain body of men or by a body constituted in a certain 
 way ? 
 
 Had there been no conventions of the American states 
 at the time of their organization or their coming into the 
 Union, it is quite possible that constitutions might have 
 been adopted by them through some election proposed by 
 anybody, or any set of officers or persons in actual au- 
 thority or without authority in the territory at the time. 
 But if the election was actually open to all the electors of 
 the state and a majority favored the adoption of the con- 
 stitution, and all of the departments of government pro- 
 vided for therein had been put in actual operation, would 
 the courts declare it null? Would they commit suicide, 
 or as a member of the tripartite state government in- 
 vite it? 
 
 History furnishes many examples of a state of peace 
 occurring to an unorganized society, and of laws and 
 regulations being imposed thereon and accepted thereby. 
 A convention is only one of them. It is, however, well 
 and naturally adapted to the construction or creation 
 of a state; and in fact until the state shall have become 
 so diseased as to need practical re-creation, we can sec 
 no other use for it. 
 
 Supposing measures amending the constitution were 
 presented by the General Assembly and voted on and 
 
42 
 
 adopted by a majority vote of the people cast at an elec- 
 tion regularly held by the election officers of the state and 
 under the forms in vogue, would the judicial department 
 of the government be authorized or empowered to declare 
 it null ? Such a measure might involve the peace and 
 stability of the state. There might have been no time for 
 the slow process of a constitutional convention, and a 
 submission of its work to the people for a vote. There 
 might be ultra-stringent methods required by a constitu- 
 tion and it might take six or a dozen years to obtain an 
 expression of the people upon a submitted draft of a new 
 constitution; and it in any event would require the 
 throwing the whole body of organic law into technical 
 chaos and confusion. 
 
 The state should not invite self destruction, nor should 
 any of its governmental departments do what would in- 
 vite or threaten it. If the legislature were pro- 
 ceeding to submit an amendment to a constitution 
 in a way different from a form prescribed by that instru- 
 ment, and the administration officers of the state were 
 proceeding to hold an election in consequence thereof, the 
 court might enjoin the holding of such election. But the 
 courts woiuld act in such case, not by virtue of any in- 
 hibition in the constitution that no- otJwr method could 
 be pursued in any case, but that the directory require- 
 ments in said instrument should be followed, where not 
 impracticable, or not gravely menacing to the state's wel- 
 fare, and that in the specific instance then being con- 
 sidered it was practicable to follow them. 
 
 But all this would simply seem to show that of neces- 
 sity the invitation for the courts to interfere must be a 
 matter of discretion or" must be limited to cases where 
 full relief could be given the public by pursuing the slow 
 and technical methods pointed out in the constitution. 
 
43 
 
 We learn from Jamcsi.n that the legislative mode of 
 changiiiii the constitution is about as common in America 
 as the convention mode, that ''they are of about equal 
 antiquity and about equal authority." (p. 551.) We 
 think the former by far the "most natural" and orderly 
 method which Jameson concedes it to l>e; and we can not 
 see why limitations upon the use of such a method are not 
 as illogical as similar limitations upon a convention 
 would be. We will refer later to this subject. 
 
 IVhai is the proper futietion of a constituiionf 
 
 The Bill of Rights sets out certain individual rights 
 which it declares shall never be infringed, and which 
 by common acceptance are the heritage of the people and 
 proved by the sacrifices and contests and mutations of his- 
 tory to be necessar • for human progress. The Frame of 
 Government provides for the organization of the statsi 
 and its chief departments, etc. These about mark the 
 limits of the prui:;er scope of such an instrument. 
 
 If the frame of government had been long established 
 and by common consent recognized as permanent, the bill 
 of rights would seem to be sufficient. 
 
 If rights preserved by the latter article had like- 
 wise by common consent l)een accepted and established 
 through long usage, it would seem that such article also 
 would be superfiuous. 
 
 Tt is barely possible, therefore, that a day will come 
 when carrying along provisions of such fundamental 
 character upon the statute lxx)ks and other public records, 
 will be deemed a useless burden and such documents !)C 
 treated as so much "dead timber," possessing little more 
 than historical interest. This bv icason of their essential 
 and conceded perninnrnrv 
 
44 
 
 We do' not mean by this that the provisions will be less 
 vital or come to be thought of as not important; but that 
 through long continue'd usage in protecting such rights, 
 and by a public habit of recognizing them as vital, they 
 will become such an essential part of our public life that 
 the probability of their infringement by the legislature or 
 other public agencies will be ultra-remote and scarcely 
 thought of. 
 
 When one looks, therefore, at the modern constitution 
 of an American state and witnesses that nine-tenths of it 
 is mere legislation or "mechanics" or method, and but 
 one-tenth of it fundamentally vital in principle, it does not 
 look at all like a very benign or logically fit document. 
 Considered apart from the actual experiences of such 
 states with these many featured limitations (many of the 
 latter of which have become like fangs in the body of the 
 corporate Dublic), the instrument itself looks cumber- 
 some and grotesque. 
 
 It is therefore a relief to find that in one American 
 state — Virginia — the first constitution was simply a dec- 
 laration of the bill of rights ; and that the broad and sim- 
 ple Massachusetts constitution of 1789 is, with however 
 many and various amendments, in force to-day. 
 
 We do not here, of course, advocate the immediate do- 
 ing away with all things in our constitution, except the 
 bill of rights and the frame of government. A 
 tendency exists on the part of the very best of 
 legislators to frequently disturb things without a 
 sufficient warrant therefor. While the English parlia- 
 ment (whose power of legislation is practically unlim- 
 ited), has eventually been brought up to a condition where 
 there is little danger of disturbing matters of vital and 
 
45 
 
 permanent interest, our legislatures in America are prone 
 to do so with very slight demand or urgency therefor. 
 It takes considerahlc brains, much experience and 
 some moral courage to escape an occasional "tinkering" 
 with vital things. 
 
 Some "mechanics" might he safely lodged in the con- 
 stitution if they were such as it were clear would not have 
 to be frequently changed. 
 
 But the power of amendment, or change of such pro- 
 visions should indeed be broad, and the people should be 
 untrameled in respect thereto, except that reasonable pro- 
 visions to restrain their being submitted at every pretext 
 should be appreciated and upheld. 
 
 The requirement that two-thirds of each house of the 
 assembly must assent to a proposal, and that the majority 
 of the electors voting thereon shall favor such proi^sal. 
 is limitation enough upon methods of procedure. 
 
 Our present constitution consists of about 200 sections, 
 some of these many featured and complex. The points 
 in which its limitations bear upon public progress, need 
 not be scheduled here. But the safer practice will 
 be to remove those which are superfluous only as they arc 
 found to block the path of progress; and it will probably 
 be a long time before Illinois, as well as the other states, 
 get back to a real constitution. 
 
 There have been so many state conventions in America 
 that we have acquired a sort of "convention habit," as it 
 were, and we have partly lost sight of the radically dis- 
 turbing nature of such a \x)(\y. 
 
 Its proper function is constructive. It is properly oc- 
 casioned only to a state of unfoimded or unformed so- 
 ciety or actual or technical anarchy. 
 
46 
 
 This "habit" has even dulled the eyes of American 
 writers upon constitutional law, and they fail to note the 
 essential gravity of such a thing. 
 
 Judge Jameson, writing thirty years agO' at Chicago, 
 speaks oi the convention as now "a. part of our common 
 law in America." In treating of the validity or in- 
 validity of conventions, he is quite firm in advocating that 
 the methods in the original constitution for amendment 
 or for calling a convention should be firmly adhered to. 
 
 In this latter he is correct. But it is thought that the 
 process of amendment of a constitution proposed by the 
 legislature and voted on by the people at large, which he 
 in another place says is the "natural one," is as much a 
 part of the common law as conventions. 
 
 The exigency where forms prescribed by the constitu- 
 tion for making changes therein either through amend- 
 ment or convention are found to be onerous and threaten 
 the welfare of the state and its continued existence is not, 
 as we think, treated accurately. Any departure from 
 these forms, no matter whether or not the method pur- 
 sued is provided by the legisalture and decreed by a vote 
 of the people themselves, is treated by Judge Jameson as 
 "illegal" and "revolutionary." 
 
 In referring to acts which are done without law or 
 against law, to save the existence of the state, "to save 
 that for which all laws are made/' he says. p. 102 : "Such 
 acts are nevertheless to be classed as revolutionary. 
 The moral character to be affixed to them, however, is to 
 be determined by the degree of their necessity. * * * 
 Such acts may, under some circumstances, be necessary 
 or justifiable to preserve life." 
 
47 
 
 These observations, however, do not touch the case 
 mentioned above. For acts such as he mentions there is 
 no legal warrant whatever. 
 
 I But from the "necessity to preserve life" the courts 
 
 mav conceive and declare as matter of lazv, that it could 
 not have been intended to take life, or that if it was so 
 intended there was no legal warrant therefor. 
 
 How deep down into the vitals of state life reach the 
 provisions for revision or amendment of their consti- 
 tutions is shown by the history of the American states. 
 
 The Deleware constitution provided that there should 
 be no change in certain vital provisions therein whether 
 by amendment or convention revision, without a vote of 
 at least five-sevenths of the "assembly," and seven-ninths 
 of the "council," which two houses constituted its legis- 
 lature. 
 
 The state needed a change, and needed it badly, and it 
 was impossible to get the requisite unanimity of opinion 
 thereon or the requisite number of votes therefor in the 
 legislature. 
 
 Thereupon said body, reciting the said impossibility 
 and the necessity for the change, etc.. etc., by a majority 
 vote of its members, provided for an election of delegates 
 to a state convention to be held for the purfxise of revis- 
 ing the constitution. Such delegates were elected, and 
 the convention was called and revi.sed said instrument, 
 changing said vital provisions above referred to, and the 
 new instrument went into effect. It was not even ques- 
 tioned that it was valid, and the people acted under it 
 from the start. 
 
 A similar action was taken in 1850 in the State of 
 Maryland. The constitution of 1776. then in force. Sec. 
 59, provided that neither the Form of Government nor 
 
48 
 
 the Bill of Rights, nor any part thereof, should be 
 altered, changed or abolished "unless a bill so to alter, 
 change or abolish the same should pass the General As- 
 sembly, and be published at least three months before a 
 new election," etc. 
 
 After violent contests between the friends and enemies 
 of a reform of the State Constitution, an act was finally 
 passed in 1850, in direct vioaltion of this provision of 
 that instrument, to call a convention, the result of which 
 was the election of such a body, and the adoption by it 
 of the Constitution of 1851. 
 
 Evidently the people of the state in each of 
 these instances never thought that they were un- 
 dergoing a silent ''revolution," which Jameson is pleased 
 to term this episode. Common sense apparently prompted 
 them to assume that if there were such inhibitions in the 
 letter of their constitution, as in a given case would abso- 
 lutely prevent their progress or relief from intense inter- 
 nal evil, and throw them into anarchy and chaos, it was 
 but reasonable to believe and act upon the belief that such 
 prohibitions were never meant to apply to such an extra- 
 ordinary case; that they must be read with the implied 
 modification that they were to apply in all cases when not 
 impracticable for the welfare of the state, or when fol- 
 lowing them would not imperil the existence of the state. 
 
 Between such a construction (not uncommon, by the 
 way, in construing statute law in ''police power" cases), 
 and the technical rule of following the letter in all cases, 
 lies all that lies between order and chaos, sanity and in- 
 sanity, existence and death. 
 
 Is it, then, hard to choose between them ? 
 
 There is also an instance where the amendment plan 
 was adopted in a manner without affirmative constitu- 
 tional warrant therefor. 
 
49 
 
 In Kentucky (in 1891), after the draft of constitution 
 which a convention had prepared had been submitted 
 to and accepted by a p(jpular vote (as provided by the 
 statute wliich summoned the convention), the convention 
 met again and made s'»me alterations on whirl, the people 
 have never been asked to vote. 
 
 Prucecdings were taken before the Court of Appeals of 
 Kentucky to determine the vaHchty of these aherations, 
 and the court by a majorilv upheld them, on the ground 
 that the legislature and executive had treated them as 
 operative. The matter is further complicateil by the 
 fact that something similar had happened in 1850, 
 when the last previous constitution was ».dopted, and that 
 that constitution did not, like the statute which created 
 the convention of 1890, prescribe a popular vote. 
 
 The doctrine of the Kentucky case was the same as 
 that on which courts uphold the organization of munici- 
 pal and other public bodies, which, though without tech- 
 nical legal warrant, have been recognized by the legisla- 
 ture or the public at large, and been widely acted upon, 
 and to upset or destroy which would o|)erate to the loss 
 and confusion of the public at large, or any considerable 
 portion of it. 
 
 These three instances are quite distinct in character 
 from another which happened in Rhode Island in 1 841. 
 Vital constitutional changes, as in the other two in- 
 stances were badly needed. 
 
 Upon repeated failures and refusals of the .i^^ciubly to 
 act, a "spontaneous" convention was called by a number 
 of citizens, which convention called ui)on the people of 
 the state to elect delegates to a further convention to be 
 called to frame and adopt a new constitution for the state. 
 An election was held, the delegates elected as^^etnhlcd. 
 
5^ 
 
 prepared a new constitution and adopted it, prepared for 
 holding elections under it for a governor and members 
 of assembly, etc., etc. The so-called assembly was 
 elected, met, passed some laws, and the '^governor," one 
 Dorr, attempted to act as chief executive officer of the 
 state. 
 
 Upon a test the state Supreme Court held the so-called 
 constitution void, as well as all acts done under it, and 
 the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the 
 judgment. Luther v. Borden^ 7 How. (U. S.), 19-27. 
 
 In this case, however, in calling upon the people to act 
 in the matter of electing deleo^ates and adopting the so- 
 called constitution, etc., the state was not speaking 
 through its appropriate and authorized speaking organ, 
 the legislature. The new legislative body, governor, 
 etc., had been created and were acting in opposition to 
 and at war with the state's lawful and existing organ- 
 isms. 
 
 It was clearly an act of revolution, and held to be so. 
 
 Judge Jameson safely classes it as such. But to the 
 Delaware and Maryland cases he also' applies the same 
 character, and in this we think he errs. 
 
 For, there the state was acting through its lawfully 
 constituted organisms to change limitations upon its 
 progress, to save itself from chaos and anarchy. 
 
 The *'prior generation" in bringing into life the child 
 of the state had made a decree which meant or threatened 
 it with death, if construed literally, and if no exceptions 
 zvhatever were made in its application. 
 
 The change in each instance was accepted by the whole 
 public without question — itself strong evidence that such 
 a proceeding was legal. 
 
51 
 
 But the logic to support it was twofold, viz. : 
 
 First, it could not have been intended by the state or- 
 ganizers that it should be disrupted and broken up; and 
 hence any provision framed by them would be so con- 
 strued as to except a case which threatened such a crisis 
 
 or result. 
 
 Secondly, in bringing the child of state into life such 
 parental generation, while having power to environ or 
 control it, had no power to decree its death; and to such 
 extent such provisions were inconsistent with the very act 
 of state formation, and void. 
 
 Says Judge Jameson, p. 597 : 
 
 "Attempts, as I have said, have been made to de- 
 fend this action of the States of Delaware and 
 Maryland on legal grounds. In the case of Dela- 
 ware the legality of the course was distinctly as- 
 serted by Mr. Bayard, the senator from that state, 
 in a speech delivered in the senate of the United 
 States in 1858. upon the Lecompton Constitution, 
 * * * the broad principle being asserted by 
 him that a majority of a people could not be re- 
 strained by constitutional inhibitions from chang- 
 ing the fundamental law when and as they plea-ed. 
 The reasoning, in brief, by which this remarkable 
 proposition was sustained, was comprised in these 
 political axioms, resulting, as he claimed, 'from the 
 nature of man'; first, that all ptnvers of g»n-ernment 
 rest ultimately in the people at large; secondly, that 
 a majority of those who choose to act may organize 
 a government; and. thirdly, that the right to 
 change is included in the right to organize, and 
 may in like manner be exercised at any time by a 
 majority. * * * 
 
 "So. in reference to the Maryland case, the Hon. 
 Reverdy Johnson, United States senator from that 
 state, is a late letter respecting certain proceedings 
 of the Maryland convention of 18^)4. said: 'N'o 
 man denies that the American principle is well set- 
 tled that all governments originate with the people 
 
52 
 
 and may by like authority be abolished or modified; 
 and that it is not within the power of the people, 
 even for themselves, to surrender this right, much 
 less to surrender it for those who are to succeed 
 them. A provision^ therefore, in the Constitution 
 of any one of the United States, limiting the right 
 of the people to abolish or modify it, would he sim- 
 ply void. And it was upon this ground alone that 
 our Constitution of '76 was superseded by that of 
 '51. The Constitution of 1851, therefore, rests up- 
 on the inherent and inalienable American principle 
 that every people have a right to change their gov- 
 ernment.' Subsequently, referring to this princi- 
 ple, he says : 'In its nature it is revolutionary, but, 
 notwithstanding that, it is a legal principle.' 
 
 "Two points involved in these extracts deserve 
 consideration : 
 
 ''i. The right is claimed for the people to estab- 
 lish and to change their governments at pleasure — 
 a right which cannot in general be denied. But 
 who are the people? In the true sense of the term 
 it means the political society considered as a unit, 
 comprising in one organization the entire popula- 
 tion of the state, of all ages, sexes and conditions. 
 Unquestionably it is the right of the people in this 
 sense to found its institutions and to determine how 
 they shall and how they shall not be abolished or 
 amended. Having ordained the mode, however, 
 in which changes therein may, and in which they 
 shall not be made, clearly no mode can be legal 
 which contravenes the express letter of that funda- 
 mental provision. The society has, it is true, the 
 physical power to override its own restrictions. 
 But such an act would most certainly be illegal, 
 because in violation of the letter of the law. Even 
 were the whole people, by unanimous action, to 
 effect organic changes in modes forbidden by the 
 existing organic law, it would be an act of revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 ''2. That whatever the people are authorized to 
 do, a majority of them may do, is generally true — 
 by the term majority meaning the greater number. 
 But it is important to determine the stage at which 
 
k 
 
 53 
 
 the proposition holds g(jocl. Nature knows noth- 
 \u^ of any majority but that of force. Anterior, 
 then, to any positive institutions, and this side an 
 appeal to force, nothing less than the whole can 
 rii^htfully bind the whole. It is only when a polit- 
 ical society, with positive laws and conii)acts, has 
 been established, that the whole can be lK)und by 
 the action of a number less than the whole; and the 
 number to which shall be accorded the power to act 
 for the whole, and the conditions under which it 
 may so act, are matters of positive regulation in 
 f which alone they find their warrant. From this it 
 
 is apparent that a mere majority in number of all 
 the citizens of a state or of the electors of a state 
 have no right whatever to act for the whole state 
 unless they can point to authority to that effect, ex- 
 press or implied, in the Constitution of the state; 
 and that if the action taken or proposed by such 
 majority is palpably in the teeth of a constitutional 
 provision, it is usurping and revolutionary. This. 
 it will have been observed, was admitted by Senator 
 Johnson, in the extract given above, although, it is 
 true, that eminent lawyer gave utterance t«^ the 
 astounding paradox, that the action of the Mary- 
 land convention was at once rci'olutionary and 
 legal — a contradiction which we have a right not 
 to expect from a man occupying the li'gh j)Osition 
 of a senator of the United States, not to sav, of the 
 foremost lawyer in the Union." 
 
 But between these two views there lies a middle 
 ground, viz. : 
 
 It is not a right of the people at all times to change 
 their fundamental organization upon the expressed will 
 of a majority acting for the whole. The regulations for 
 changing the organization are valid. 
 
 Rut if they amount to destroying it, or if necessary to 
 presence it, resort can be had to the common law rule — 
 the rule of necessity — that the majority of the people 
 should have the right to alter or change it. 
 
54 
 
 Many state constitutions contain this latter as a funda- 
 mental principle of American law. This, of course, 
 means as a legal principle. 
 
 Thus modified, and as applied to the action of Dela- 
 ware and Maryland, Mr. Reverdy Johnson's declaration 
 that such right (to be exercised in such am exigency) is 
 a legal right, is understandable; and we think that 
 the great lawyer's conclusions were sound, and the 
 learned author's erroneous. Mr. Johnson meant only 
 by his quoted expression that such acts were radical^ or 
 convulsive or strenuously exertive, in such sense 'Revo- 
 lutionary in character." He may have been technically 
 inaccurate in referring to a legal act as practically "revo- 
 lutionary." But we are more concerned with his con- 
 clusions than the phrasing of his argument, and these 
 we think are sound. 
 
 Judge Jameson, in discussing the character of resolu- 
 tions proposing amendments and requiring a state vote 
 thereon, such as we have in this tate, concludes that they 
 are "legislative" and not merely "ministerial." 
 
 As to "ministerial" resolutions for amendment, viz. : 
 such as merely recommend amendments without requir- 
 ing a vote thereon, or require a vote simply to take the 
 sense of the people thereupon, etc., he gives as an in- 
 stance a clause in the Massachusetts constitution, in- 
 serted by the convention of 1820. 
 
 The question was up whether it was proper to require 
 more than a majority of each house to thus recommend 
 amendments to the people. Mr. Webster gave as a rea- 
 son in favor thereof that "This was not an exercise of 
 legislative power." 
 
 And Judge Jameson, after quoting Mr. Lincoln in the 
 same debate concludes by saying: "The aim of these 
 
55 
 
 gentlemen was to show that in requiring more than a ma- 
 jority of the legislature or of some branch of it, to pro- 
 pose amendments to the constitution, uo principle was 
 violated, as zi'oithl have been the case had it been an act 
 of ordinary legislation for which, by the common prac- 
 tice of all free governments, a majority is sufficient. Be- 
 ing not an exercise of legislation at all, there was no im- 
 propriety in requiring a vote of two-thirds or of any 
 other majority." 
 
 Judge Jameson thus reveals the vitaJ nature of the prin- 
 ciple of a majority rule, as applied to all free govern- 
 ments. 
 
 And the great ''leak" in his argument is at the point 
 where he says the action of a majority will Ixi illegal un- 
 less "they can point to some authority, express or im- 
 plied.'" 
 
 We claim for the majority an implied authority in the 
 exigency mentioned. An authority lying at the base of 
 the existence of the state — deeper than its constitution — 
 as implied from the fact or the making of a constitption. 
 
 In the Delaware and Maryland cases the people, the 
 sovereign, spoke to themselves through the election. Any 
 election at which the jKople actually voted would not 
 necessarily be a legal one. But one held at the instance 
 of the legislature, the authorized Ixxly for all such politi- 
 cal and legislative acts, would be a different matter. 
 
 In classifying the five systems according to their 
 relative rank in representing sovereign powers, Jameson 
 (p. 24) gives this order: 
 
 1. The electors. 
 
 2. The legislature. 
 
 3. The convention. 
 
 4. The executive. 
 
 5. The judiciary. 
 
56 
 
 In according this high place to the legislature he in 
 fact tends tO' support the view that in the exigency of the 
 state's existence being threatened the third, the conven- 
 tion, having no pov^er to decree what may amount to dis- 
 solution, the sovereign, through its electors called to act 
 by its legislature, both of them higher in grade than the 
 convention, can orderly and legally decree otherwise. 
 
 The legal power to preserve itself is implicit in the 
 state as a state; and its three organic departments must 
 support each other in acts to that end appropriate to their 
 respective functions. 
 
 What is implied from legal existence is not illegal. 
 
 In exercising this power the state, and in upholding it 
 the courts, had the right to seize upon the common law 
 rule of a majority being equitably and of right the voice 
 of the whole body. 
 
 In referring, p. 241, to a claim in the Rhode Island 
 constitution of 1842 to the effect that the constitution 
 ''should exist and be sacredly obligatory upon all till 
 changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole 
 people," he wisely concludes that this must mean the ma- 
 jority of the electors of the people. 
 
 It is thus seen how close to the heart of the state lie 
 constitutions and the power to change them; and hence 
 how wide a field courts must have in construing them. 
 
 In grants of power to its courts, in constructive provi- 
 sions, etc., extrinsic aids may be resorted to and words 
 supplied to give effect where the language used is vague. 
 
 In limitations, however, a strict construction will be 
 applied. There is no better settled rule. There is 
 as much difference between the two as there is 
 between expansion and contraction or between 
 
57 
 
 traveling east and traveling west. And when gross and 
 widespread evils have sprung up within the state, and an 
 acute disease can not be cured by applving the strict letter 
 of such, an orderly decree of the state itself given upon 
 invitation of its appropriate organ, should be sustained by 
 the courts as a police measure necessary to preserve its 
 very life, and hence not contemplated by such prohibi- 
 tions, and beyond the pozver of the constitution makers 
 to prohibit. 
 
 From some study of the question we conclude : 
 
 1. A convention is the method by which American 
 states formed their government, their state corpus, as it 
 were. 
 
 2. Such a corpus, upon being formed, was divided into 
 three different members — executive, legislative and judi- 
 cial. 
 
 3. The legislative is the natural and only one 
 through which the people speak or move to change their 
 organization. 
 
 4. Such move must be made in the manner provided 
 for by the constitution, and the legislature must keep 
 within its limitations, excepting when it is impracticable to 
 do so, or the "peace and tranquility" of the state will he 
 endangered by delay, or by attempts to follow such 
 methods. 
 
 5. In sucli latter case the legislature can propose 
 changes; and if the majority of voters (representing the 
 sovereign iK)wer — the people themselves) vote affirma- 
 tively thereon, it will be in fact the decree of sovereignty 
 itself, and should be sustained by the courts, as warranted 
 under the circumstances, — as a measure of necessity 
 adopted according to common law or universally accepted 
 
58 
 
 methods, — as the only orderly and prompt way for relief, 
 — as essentially a police measure occasioned by a situation 
 unprovided for by the constitution — as a natural ''last 
 gasp." Such is not an act of ''silent revolution," but 
 rather the orderly decree of a sane state organism, that 
 it will not throw itself into chaos and be "revolutionized." 
 
 6. For the assembly to refuse to speak in such a crisis, 
 or the courts to sustain, and the executive to execute, 
 would be just about as logical and natural as for a phys- 
 ically sound man to refuse to walk from the verge of a 
 precipice, or as for one in the throes of death to refuse to 
 breathe pure air about him. 
 
 8. It is not clear that the "convention" method has 
 any better title than the "amendment" plan to being the 
 "common law" manner for making such organic changes. 
 
 But, rather, it is clear that amendment is the natural or 
 orderly way for a constitution to "develop" or "evolve;" 
 and that in construing any limitations upon the methods 
 or power of amendment, the strictest construction should 
 be indulged, rather than drive the state to a "convention" 
 remedy, opening up its whole organism to change or at- 
 tack — a technical confession that there is little or none of 
 such organism left to be held fast to — that democracy it- 
 self is a failure. 
 
 9. The doctrine of police power has been long estab- 
 lished. In many instances laws in apparent conflict with 
 the letter of constitutions have been sustained under this 
 doctrine, viz. : As being proper police or defensive meas- 
 ures under extraordinary circumstances, as measures of 
 necessity for the public welfare. 
 
 10. The extension or application of this doctrine to 
 "constitutional" decrees, or that they must in appropriate 
 cases yield to the orderly decrees of sovereignty itself is 
 natural and legitimate. True, it may in such cases be 
 
59 
 
 more far-reaching in effect and involve more responsi- 
 bilitv 1)\ the courts; but, on the other hand, the parts of 
 the organic body affected He nearer the heart, and the 
 o-reater risk would lie in their refusing relief or declining 
 responsibility. 
 
 We do not feel called on to venture an opinion as to 
 whether or not conditions in Illinois are so bad and the 
 evils needing correction by changes in its constitution so 
 many as to justify a resort to the method used in the in- 
 stances of Maryland and Delaware, above noted. 
 
 For we believe that the conclusions announced as to 
 the (at least practically) unrestrictive nature of the 
 amendatory provision of the Illinois constitution are be- 
 yond serious question. 
 
 If one, however, were able to see accurately the many 
 places where the provisions of such instrument l)ear 
 heavily upon public health, economy and general welfare, 
 and to approximately "size up" results, he might con- 
 clude that single changes as narrow in scope as we have 
 been invited to make this one were out of the question 
 if public calamity were certain to be ultimately avoided. 
 But the subject of greatly curtailing the power to 
 change a constitution seemed to us to be more vital than 
 is generally supposed ; and "there was thus a temptation 
 to add these observations under Part II by way of con- 
 formation and emphasis to the conclusions under Part I. 
 That a "majority should rule" in the exigency that no 
 other action is possible to save the "peace and tranquil- 
 lity" or the very existence of the state, is admitted to be 
 "a fundamental principle of legislation" and "the com- 
 mon practice of all free governments:' 
 
 And we believe that a profound study of this principle 
 and the tracing of it to its logical source will reveal it 
 
6o 
 
 as a legal implication, and to lie safe and unassailable 
 at some distance this side of revolution, "silent" or 
 otherwise. 
 
 In the gathering cry of despair throughout the coun- 
 try at amending the Federal Constitution (when radical 
 changes shall have become necessary) through its de- 
 clared stringent provisions, it might be profitable to think 
 of this as a possible way out; and to consider the histor- 
 ical precedents therefor in several of the states. 
 
 The annexed draft of amendment is the one last offered 
 in the Assembly in 1901. 
 
 We concede that it has too much ''mechanics" in it. 
 
 But these were dictated by the influences and conditions 
 with which the Federation was beset, and accepted under 
 protest. We hope that some of these may finally be 
 dropped; and that a new and simpler draft embodying 
 the main features be submitted. 
 
 But for the purpose of testing the specific question of 
 whether or not varied or complex provisions can be validly 
 placed in amendments submitted at one session the said 
 annexed draft is probably as good as any other. 
 
 Respectfully submitted. 
 
 Harry S. Mecartney,"! 
 Chairman. 1 
 E. Allen Frost^ 
 Robert McMurdy^ 
 
 Chicago, September 22, 1902. 
 
 Committee. 
 
6i 
 
 Draft of Amendment. 
 
 (Siihmitlcd to Assembly of 1901.) 
 
 Resolved, by the Senate, the House of Representa- 
 tives concurring herein. That there shall be submitted to 
 the voters of this state at the next election of members 
 of the General Assembly a proposition to so amend the 
 seventh section of Article X of the Constitution of this 
 state that the same shall read as follows: 
 
 Section 7. The General Assembly may provide for 
 the consolidation of city, county, township, park district, 
 sanitary district and other governmental functions, or a 
 part thereof, within the limits of the City of Chicago or 
 the County of Chicago, hereinafter provided for, or any 
 part thereof, and no act providing for or amending such 
 consolidation scheme, or relating to the governmental 
 affairs of the City of Chicago, or such County of Chi- 
 cago, shall be held invalid for violating any provision of 
 this article of this Constitution, or any provision of Sec- 
 tion 22 of Article IV of this Constitution relat- 
 ing to county, township or municipal affairs. 
 Such consolidation scheme shall provide that a 
 county shall be formed of the territory com- 
 prising the present City of Chicago and that part of the 
 township of Norwood Park, which was formerly a part 
 of the township of Jefferson, which shall be known 
 as the County of Chicago, and shall also provide ior 
 courts and C(junty government, and for fixing the county 
 seat or seats for the remainder of Cook County, as in the 
 case of new counties, by a vote of the legal voters there- 
 of, and shall provide a just method of apportioning the 
 debts and proi)erty of Cook County between the counties 
 constituted or affected. Not more than two counties 
 shall be formed from such remaining territory. Terri- 
 tory may be annexed to or separated from said County 
 of Chicago in the method provided by this constitution 
 and the general laws of the state, irrespective of the pro- 
 visions of Section i of this article, proz^ided that any 
 change of county boundaries in violation of said section 
 shall only l)c made by consent of a majority of the legal 
 voters of the remaining |>ortion of the county fnnn which 
 it is proposed to separate such territory. 
 
62 
 
 No act providing a scheme of consolidation hereunder 
 shall take effect until submitted to the vote of the elect- 
 ors of said Cook County, at a separate election to be held 
 therefor, and ratified by a majority of the legal voters 
 voting thereon, of the City of Chicago, and also by a 
 like majority of the legal voters voting thereon of that 
 portion of Cook County outside of said city, and any 
 amendment thereto or any local or special law relating 
 to the governmental affairs of the City of Chicago or 
 the County of Chicago, shall be ratified by a majority of 
 the electors voting thereon of the district affected before 
 taking effect. Upon the taking effect of a scheme of 
 consolidation hereunder, all the provisions of this Con- 
 stitution relating to Cook County shall be deemed to 
 apply to said County of Chicago. Until otherwise pro- 
 vided, the affairs of Cook County shall be managed as 
 now provided by law. 
 
 The City of Chicago may be allowed to become in- 
 debted, in the aggregate, including existing indebted- 
 ness, not exceeding five per centum on the full value of 
 the taxable property therein, to be ascertained by the last 
 assessment for state and county taxes, previous tO' the 
 incurring of such indebtedness. 
 
 The authorities of such City or County of Chicago 
 shall not be given power to permit the sale of intoxicat- 
 ing liquors in any district where such sales are prohib- 
 ited at the time of the adoption of this amendment. 
 
 The General Assembly may provide for abolishing the 
 offices of justice of the peace and constable within the 
 City of Chicago or the County of Chicago, when estab- 
 lished, and for the substitution therefor of other courts 
 and officers. 
 

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